


Redemption Songs

by Ayezur



Series: An Act of Mercy [2]
Category: Rurouni Kenshin
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Post-Revolution, Sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-02-10 07:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2016420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ayezur/pseuds/Ayezur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, sequel to Invictus.  Six years later, the war is over.  But the fight hasn't ended - dark plots and old grudges  simmer below the surface, and the sweet peace of the new world might be nothing more than a pleasant perfume masking the rot of the old.  And as much as the inhabitants of the Kamiya school would rather nurse their wounds, they may have no choice but to take up arms once more...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: they have all been blown out

**Author's Note:**

> So first I was like 'I'll post it this weekend.'
> 
> And then I was like 'but it's ready now....?'
> 
> So here you are. Enjoy. This one will be updating monthly, because I have a life now.

A high-pitched whine split the night, cracking into a thousand glimmering strands of colored light. One burst, than another, than the third – more and more until the stars paled before their glory. A paper lion danced in the street below, its red-gold, silken hide gleaming in the lantern light. Bystanders clapped and cheered it on as it wended through the streets like a curious cat, sniffing and searching out good luck, chasing away demons and angry ghosts with its thundering paws.

Megumi watched the festival from the small window of the high room she and Shinomori had rented. They had been on the continent for nearly a year now, moving from city to city as he chased long-dead leads with the perfect focus of a man who allowed nothing else in his life. Before the war his quest had been vengeance; now he sought redemption with the same cool clarity.

And she… she was here because she had nowhere else to go.

She could have stayed. They would have fought for her, the veterans of the Edo cell (Tokyo, now, as if changing the name could somehow change the thing itself, and maybe it could). But it was easier to go, easier to remove herself from a country that no longer needed the reminder of her presence. She had been _his_ creature, after all. Kanryu's doctor. If they had managed to find his body, perhaps… but they hadn't, and the only proof she had that he was dead was her own conviction that Sir Hiko would never have let him live.

She was all of Kanryu that remained.

So it was only right and natural that the rage of those who remained would focus on her. It was only right and natural that, without Kanryu to put on trial, they would seek vengeance against her. And who was she to say that she did not deserve punishment? She'd had a choice, the same as anyone, and she had chosen to live. She had protected her own existence, bought her life in the blood and suffering of untold thousands and that was sin enough to condemn her.

Sano hadn't understood. But then, she hadn't expected him to.

And she had been selfish to the end. She could have stayed and answered the charges, accepted whatever penance the new government deemed appropriate, allowed them to sweep her into the burning-pile with the rest of the detritus and feed the pyre of the old world with her still-breathing corpse. But she had not. She had run, instead.

She had chosen to survive.

A staccato burst of firecrackers accompanied another round of cheers and shouts from the merrymakers below. Meat glistened and popped on streets vendors' grills, savory scents and sharp spices drifting up to where she sat in her high window, looking down from the shadows. She could see the rooftops from here, watch the slinking profiles of cats and cat-burglars outlined against the dull-shining stars. Eventually one of them would prove to be Shinomori, coming back with another dead-end (in which case he would brood all night) or a live lead (in which case he would sit tense and silent, and catnap a little towards dawn).

She had chosen to survive. And she would. At least until Shinomori had his answer.

After that…

After that, she would see.

~*~

"They will talk to you of peace. They will say that the war is over. They will ask you why you cannot live in peace, why there cannot be fellowship and love between master and slave now that the cannons have ceased their firing, now that the masters have been cast down, now that our chains have been broken. They will ask and you must give them an answer, the only answer. You must say that the war is not yet ended."

Sano sat cross-legged on the cold earth at the edge of the assembly, listening. Shishio's words fell into his heart like rain into half-dead soil, soothing the rage that parched him. Rage was his constant companion, these days. It sat coiled under his heart like a serpent made of stone, weighing down his chest until the air was enough to drown him. It was a shameful thing – he had never been so cold, before the war – and it wasn't as if his was the worst pain to come from those gunpowder days.

That was an important thing to remember. Something to hold on to when the stone serpent threatened to pull him under. He had lost so little. So little, compared to others. But enough and more to force the scales from his eyes.

"Say that the war is not over, brothers and sisters, and know that it is true. The war is not over. We are not free. As long as former masters still walk the halls of power, as long as our children are scorned and shunned for the markings forced upon them, we are not free. As long as they pass laws that steal our labor and our sons and daughters for imagined crimes, as long as they deny us the right of arms to defend ourselves, to defend our families, we are not free. Do not trade the iron bands of slavery for the gossamer of a spider's web. Do not let them gild the bars of the old cage and call it freedom!"

Shishio pounded the heel of his hand into the edge of the podium, marking time with the rough rhythm of his words. A low murmur passed through the crowd, punctuated by the occasional shout of agreement. There were visitors to the settlement tonight; they glanced uneasily at each other and at the crowd of listening freedmen, doubt and growing revelation warring on their face.

The truth would win, Sano knew. It always did.

The war had ended but the war was not over. The new world he had fought so long for – the new world that _she_ had bled for, had sacrificed more than _anyone_ for – was nothing but the old world with a new coat of pain.

"The bosses who whipped us in the fields now whip our families in the streets! The masters who set our quotas now set our tax rate! I say to you: we are not free! We are not free and we will _not_ be free until we have raised up a generation of our _own_ leaders on our _own_ land, until we have the means to _defend_ that land, until the sovereignty _of_ that land is respected by all! Until we are established as a power in our own right – existing without the sufferance, the _tolerance_ of our former masters – my brothers, my sisters, _we are not free!_ "

Shishio roared. The crowd roared with him, carried out of themselves, long-buried feelings finally given voice and bound by words for all to see. Sano grinned fiercely and unsurprised as the visitors joined the chorus. Their eyes shone.

The war was ended. The war was not over. And as long as it was not over – as long as the new world was still only a distant dream – he would _fight_.

~*~

The board was changing, slowly but surely, and the change was not natural. There was little doubt of that, after these last dispatches.

He tossed the papers on to his desk, sitting back with an irritated sigh, and pushed the pieces idly around his game board. Chess was a poor representation of politics, all things considered. The rules were too restrictive, the outcomes too certain. A knight could only ever be a knight, only ever move in the way that knights moved, only ever serve one master. Reality was more… fluid. Gō was better, but, like chess, didn't allow for nearly enough factions.

The board was changing, and he had traced the changes to their natural heart. The new capital, once Edo, now Tokyo – now _officially_ the seat of government, no longer lying to itself and the world about its role. Some restoration –

Enough. Vengeance made for strange bedfellows, and he'd never cared much for the Emperor anyhow. Let someone else take the new government to task for _that_ broken promise.

"What do you think, sister?"

He said it out loud, knowing that they were alone. She gave him a long, solemn look, silent as she so often was these days.

He didn't need the words, anyway. He knew her far too well.

"I know, I know." For a moment he lapsed into brooding silence, steepling his fingers just below his nose. "There's no reason to think our paths will cross. Nor is there any reason that they _should_."

"Yes, I'm certain." He snapped it without meaning to, irked by her silence. "He's kept himself out of it as much as a man in his position can."

"Although…" He fiddled with the bridge of his glasses, thoughtful. "The instructor is a different story. But still. Her efforts – intentional or otherwise – have nothing to do with this. I won't seek them out. I have no reason to."

She smiled at him, approving. His answering exhale was not quite a sigh. For a moment he stared vacantly out his window at the glittering summer sea, wondering.

Then he shook his head and dove into his papers. There was much to do.


	2. held in some dreaming state

The air was warm with late summer, a crisp hint of fall teasing the senses with the promise of the winter to come. Kenshin gazed idly out at the courtyard, looking at everything and nothing, and tried to think of what to say.

 _Dear Makoto_ , he began.

_You say that we must have our own territory, our own government, and that if it is not granted then we will only be enslaved again. I acknowledge the truth in your words – how can I not, with the laws that are even now before the Diet? – and I am ever supportive of your efforts on behalf of our shared cause. But I wonder how you intend to do this thing without another war, which I know that neither you nor I desire. And I wonder, once it is accomplished, if it_ _ can _ _be accomplished, how you intend this nation to be governed. Will only freedmen be permitted a place in government? If so, how does that differ from the previous situation? And if not, how does that differ from the current one? Or will you permit only freedmen as citizens – and in that case, what of those who already inhabit the land you choose? For there is no uninhabited place in Japan large enough to support a nation, and I doubt that a foreign country would take kindly to a mob of Japanese freedmen arriving on their shores._

Laughter split the still air. Kenshin looked up from his letter and smiled to see Mariko racing across the yard, her short legs pumping as Yutaro gave chase. His hakama was strapped to her shoulders, flying out behind her like a banner, and Kenshin couldn't help laughing at the frustration on the young man's face.

"Why, you little – "

"Now, now," Kenshin called out. "She doesn't mean any harm."

"Yeah, but – " Yutaro huffed in frustration and gave up, sitting cross-legged on the dirt. "Jeez. Fine. I can wait her out."

Kenshin smiled at that and went back to writing, keeping half an eye on the students. Yutaro began to smile himself, watching her clamber up the old maple tree that stood just inside the dojo gates: after a little while he got up again and helped her. She shrieked with joy, a delighted smile creasing the faded slave-mark on her cheek.

_Forgive me if I do not grasp all the shades of your proposal, but it strikes me that a nation such as you propose must be defined by an unceasing attachment to slavery, rather than freedom from it. For if it is to be a 'freedman's country,' then those within it must think of themselves always as freedmen, and never as_ _ men _ _. And I cannot help but feel that if I were to live such a life I would lose a great part of myself; I would feel far more enslaved by such a society than I do here, surrounded by good-hearted people – freeborn and freed alike – who seek only to live in peace with one another._

_My words are harsh. Forgive me for them. But I beg you, old friend, to understand that when you tell me that my choices undermine the cause of liberty my very soul rebels. Of what use is a revolution that does not_ _ end _ _, that merely slogs on generation after generation, two sides in eternal conflict? I have known bondage and I have known freedom. I have known war and I have known peace. And I tell you: in both cases, I prefer the latter. I was barely reborn into the world as a living, thinking being when I marched to war, and I know that I sometimes seem quite young to you, but I am nearly thirty and have spent half my life in the deepest bondage. I do not have so very many seasons left in this world, and now that I_ _ can _ _choose, I choose to spend them_ _ here _ _, in this place where I was freed. Where I have friendship and kinship, and work to plant the seeds of a hopeful future. I see from your words that you think me selfish, abandoning the cause before the war is truly won, and perhaps I am. But is not selfishness the very opposite of slavery? Why did we fight to be free, if not for the right to pursue our selfish desires?_

Mariko slipped. Yutaro caught her around the waist, huffing at her weight, and she grinned up at him with perfect ease. His answering smile was rueful and resigned, his unmarked face bearing the indignity lightly. Once she was on her feet again she permitted him to remove her improvised cloak, then clung to his leg and buried her face in it. Sighing, he picked her up and swung her onto his shoulders. She clung to him like a monkey, fearless and safe.

The two wandered off for parts unknown. Kenshin watched them go, and the bright day was brighter for it.

_Speaking of the pursuit of selfish desires, the dojo is all aflutter with the news of tournament to be held a month from now. It will be the first in Tokyo to welcome freed and freeborn alike, and therefore the first one in which the Kamiya Kasshin may participate. Other sword-schools that accept freedmen have chosen to simply send only freeborn students to represent them in local tourneys, but Kaoru of course refuses to discriminate against her students in that way. They will be judged by their skill alone or not at all, she informed the other swordmasters, and she has kept the Kasshin out of the circuit as a consequence. So this is quite an occasion! Yahiko will be competing, of course, along with Yutaro, Mayumi, Daisuke and Akiko. And I will not tell you which of them is freed and which are freeborn; if you would send your well-wishes, send them to_ _ all _ _her students._

Kenshin's pen faltered. It had been nearly a year since his return, and Kaoru still kept him at a distance. She wasn't unkind – it wasn't her nature – but the easy closeness he'd dreamed of and the affection that he'd read in her letters was gone as if it had never been. And maybe it hadn't. Maybe he had been wrong.

Maybe it had only ever been kindness, and his dreams had only ever been that.

Biting his lip, he pushed the thought away.

_As for Kaoru, the tournament is not meant for swordmasters or teachers, only students, so she will only participate in some opening exhibitions._

_I wish you would not judge her quite so harshly, Makoto. She did not seek out the position that found herself in, nor did she exploit it when it came to her. She has worked as hard as any of us to make a new world, and in her own way she is quite as uncompromising as you. I wish you would come to Tokyo; I miss you, and I think that if you only met her and saw what she and I are building here you would find many of your fears relieved. You and Yumi both – I know travel is difficult in wintertime, but surely things are not so busy that you cannot visit in the spring?_

"Mr. Himura?"

Kenshin looked up again. Soujiro was standing at the edge of the porch, an empty basket under his arms.

"I was going to start on dinner. What do you think I should pick?"

"Oh." Kenshin thought for a moment. "The cucumbers, maybe? Anything but squash, really. Yahiko swears that if we eat any more of it we're going to turn _into_ squashes, and I don't disagree."

"But there's so _much_ of it!" The corners of Soujiro's eyes crinkled in his habitual grin. A true one, Kenshin knew; he'd known the boy too long to be fooled by his false smiles. It was an old habit, smiling in the face of pain, and it brought Soujiro comfort. Therefore it went unremarked, for all it sometimes led to misunderstandings.

There was no one in Japan who did not bear scars, after all.

"Maybe we can sell some at market," Kenshin suggested, thinking over the last month's income. "It might not fetch much, but everything helps. I'll talk to – no, you should talk to Kaoru about it. Or Yahiko, if you can't catch up with her."

"All right."

Soujiro adjusted his burden and moved on. Kenshin sighed and went back to his letter, determined to end on a cheerful note.

_You will be pleased to know that Soujiro has arrived safely. I am honored that he has chosen to entrust himself to the Kasshin school, and even more so that you gave your blessing. I take it as a sign that you still have_ _ some _ _faith in me, at least._

_I tease too much, old friend. I know the depths of your faith. I also know how much you worry, with or without reason._

_Enough of this. Our young competitors have been training at all hour, on top of their regular classes and chores. I'm amazed they find the time to sleep! One can hardly walk across the yard without tripping over someone practicing their sword-swings, and Mrs. Nakamura – you will remember her from my earlier letters – has begun sewing new uniforms for our representatives. If this goes well, it will be an almighty boon to the school and with any luck will draw in more students. Which will please Yahiko. He hopes that in a few years' time there might be enough students to warrant founding a second dojo, which he hopes to run. He has the heart for it, heaven knows, and I have no doubt he'll gain the full measure of necessary skill by the time it's feasible. As for myself – well, you know too well by now how much Kaoru's happiness means to me, but more than that I pray that the Kasshin will grow in honor and reputation, and that its philosophy – the sword the protects, the blade that sustains – might spread ever further. It is a noble school, and a noble dream. Even my own teacher admitted as much, though he'll deny it to his dying day._

_My best wishes are with you, always._

_Ever your friend,_

_Kenshin Himura_

Kenshin folded the letter and sealed it, stretching as he stood with the envelope in hand. His letter wasn't the only one waiting to be mailed; he'd grab the others and go down to the post office himself. The sooner they got underway, the sooner they'd reach their destination.

It was the work of only a few minutes to gather the letters from their writers, exchanging a few words of thanks and think-nothing-of-it. Mrs. Nakamura was writing to her sister in Kyoto. Mr. Tamaka had an ongoing correspondence with a foreigner who had come to aid in the war effort. None of the children had anyone to write to – not yet – which left only…

Kenshin hesitated before he knocked on the training hall door. Kaoru hadn't been in the house, which meant that she would be here. If she was home at all. She hadn't always been, lately; she had been going out early and staying out late, coming home only for lessons and eating at the clinic or the Akabeko. And when she was at home she was distant and distracted, absent even in her smiles. The only times that she did seem fully herself was when she taught, and even then there was a certain reservation.

He didn't remember her being that way, before. But – he hadn't been entirely himself.

Maybe he'd been wrong.

"Come in," Kaoru called from inside the hall. Kenshin opened the door, bowing his reverence to the sacred space.

"Kenshin." Kaoru greeted him with small nod. "Can I help you?"

He slid the door open a bit further. "I'm making a run down to the post office before dinner. Do you need anything mailed?"

"No, not right now. Thank you for offering, though."

She said it with perfect courtesy, polite and smiling, and her eyes were shuttered as they always were when she looked at him. He paused, wanting to say more and not knowing how. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried, so many times. Too many times. Awkward, fumbling conversations that started in emptiness and went nowhere as the words that he'd committed so easily to paper shriveled on his tongue and died unspoken.

Kaoru looked at him, unblinking.

"Is there anything else?"

"…no," he said. "That's all. See you at dinner."

Another nod. She went back to her meditations. Kenshin closed the door, sighing, and headed towards town.

She probably wouldn't be at dinner tonight.

~*~

The post office was near closing and crowded with people. Kenshin smiled as he entered, hiding the sudden shriek of worry in his bones at the closeness and lack of easy exits. Some of his neighbors smiled in greeting. Others frowned and looked away, but not before their eyes skidded nervously over the brand on his cheek. Many freedmen and women chose to cover theirs with cosmetics, while a few – a very few – enhanced them with accessories. Kenshin did neither. He let it be, deep and faded, a reminder of what he no longer was. And that he had no reason to be ashamed.

The man behind the counter greeted him politely when he stepped up, faltering when he caught sight of Kenshin's marked cheek. His smile did not fade – he was too professional for that, the habits of courtesy towards paying customers too ingrained – but there was a stretched quality in it, as though he were only a second away from baring his teeth.

Kenshin ignored it and laid his letters on the counter. The employee took them with deliberate grace and told him the price. Kenshin paid it, ignoring the faint strain of skepticism in the man's voice. Many freed slaves were poor, and that wasn't their fault, but he couldn't blame the man for putting his shop's needs first.

The counterman made a show of inspecting each coin for flaws and forgeries, one that no other customer had been subjected to. Kenshin's jaw tensed; he kept his breathing even, determined not to be upset. There was little point, after all. No one would look kindly on him for causing a scene.

Coins inspected to his satisfaction, the man took the letters and handed them to his assistant, who shot Kenshin an apologetic look as he spirited them off to be mailed. Kenshin nodded, gifting the youngster a genuine smile.

There were still people in Japan who believed in the old ways, who would believe in them until their dying day, and there wasn't much to be done about it either. After all, they hadn't been old for very long. Only six years had passed since the start of the war, not even a generation. It was important not to expect too much.

And they wouldn't matter, in the long run. However many people clung to the past in fear, there would always be as many and more racing forward to see what the future held.

That mattered. That was worth holding on to.

So he left the post office with a light heart and his head held high. At least until he got home and saw the training hall standing open and Kaoru's shoes gone from the entryway.

As he'd thought. She wouldn't be home for dinner.

~*~

The memorial park was the only place Kaoru found any peace, these days.

There was a terrible irony to it: this lush green park, with its hydrangeas and creeping wisteria (but not roses, _never_ roses) fed by the blood of soldiers and slaves, was the one place in the city where the constant tension in her bones eased, if only for a little while. The landscape echoed with the memory of gunfire and the quiet murmurs of visitors paying their respects, and it soothed her to know that _something_ remembered what had passed here. Even if the world forgot, replanted the ground and covered the wounds with water and tall trees, the land remembered. Someone had to.

The new government had flooded the old slave pens and stocked the ensuing pond with carp and lily pads. Turtles sunned themselves on artistically-placed rocks, silent and serene; irises bloomed along the edges in riots of yellow-flecked purple and if people whispered that on moonless nights you could hear the cries of the dead echoing from the cool depths then that was only right. Water would purify the place, in time. She had to believe. Water would make it clean again.

There were too many named and nameless dead to give them graves, so the city had erected a small gravestone in the heart of what had once been the manor's foundations. It was granite, polished smooth and mirror-bright, and had no inscription. No one needed to be told who it was for. At first it had been piled high with grave-offerings, nearly buried under flowers and incense and small round oranges. These days, though, the tide of blood-guilt had stemmed somewhat. Only a few discreet sacrifices remained.

She had brought flowers too, in the early days. Daisies and peonies. Never roses.

Now she brought only herself.

There was a place at the edge of the water where she liked to go. A maple tree stood tall at her back, casting the green waters black with its shadow, and the carp roiled around the great boulder where she sat and sometimes fed them. Other times she only sat, silent, and watched the surface ripple in the quick, teasing breezes that were all the tall stone walls surrounding the place would admit. They'd kept the walls and the breach blown in them, shattered stone scorched black with powder. Kaoru wasn't sure why, exactly, when the city had tried so hard to erase the rest. But she preferred it.

She'd brought a few riceballs on the walk down, a poor substitute for the dinner she was missing. Most of them were going to the fish. She didn't have much of an appetite, these days.

A bright orange monster – as long as her arm and nearly twice as thick – flashed subtle gold in the shadows as it bullied its way through the frenzy, snapping up more than its share. Shenearly smiled.

"Greedy things, aren't they?"

Kaoru nearly dropped her dinner entirely. She whipped her head around, one hand coming down hard on the rock to brace herself. It scraped against her palm, not quite drawing blood.

"I'm sorry," said that man behind her, with apparent sincerity. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's all right." She said it automatically, shifting around on her knees to face him. The stone caught and tore at her skirts. "I wasn't paying attention. Can I help you?"

Not that help was owed, but the habits of a lifetime were hard to break.

The man studied her for a moment. She studied him right back. He was tall and slender, neatly dressed in the European fashion, though his features showed him to be Japanese. Except for his eyes, which were blue: almost _too_ blue, glinting like a knife blade behind tinted glasses. And his hair. It was short, tidy, and white as sun-bleached bone, clipped high above his ears. A tailored suit-jacket rested on his shoulders.

"I was having some trouble finding the memorial," he said finally. "Would you be so kind as to point me in the right direction?"

"Oh. Yes." Kaoru got to her feet. "Let me show you, actually. It can be a little hard to find."

The whole park was a memorial, of sorts, but when people asked for _the memorial_ they meant the blank and polished headstone. She noticed as she stood that he held a bucket in one hand, slightly hidden behind his back. The end of a dipper rested against the rim, next to a bundle of chrysanthemums.

Too many people had been taken by the slave trade, before and after the war, and many of them were unknown, unnamed, buried without rite or ritual. That was why the headstone had no name. He would not be the first to mourn there for someone who had no other grave.

"This way."

She started down the path, and he followed.

The man gave her a nod and murmured thanks before he knelt to pay his respects to the unmarked stone. And she should have left then, but she didn't; she couldn't say why, except that it didn't seem right. So she waited.

He prayed for a long time before he poured a dipperful of water over the stone, reverently, as if washing a body for cremation. The same reverence lingered as he took the chrysanthemums and scattered them carefully over the small steps at the foot of the stone, clasping his hands together one last time when he was done. Then he stood.

"Thank you," he said, simply.

"It's no trouble." And then, her curiosity overcoming her, "May I ask…?"

He was well-dressed, probably well-off, and few of those who came to pay tribute these days were. In the beginning all sorts had come by both to ease their consciences and in honest grief, but since the end of the war most of the visitors had been freedmen or women mourning some lost friend or relative, and the poverty that too many of them lived in was etched in their faces.

There was none of that strain in his. There were lines of thought and focus, stress wrinkling the skin between his eyes, but none of that haggard worry. And he had no slave-brand, at least none that she could see – though she supposed that his long sleeves could conceal a pleasure-house tattoo.

He raised an eyebrow; an apology sprang unspoken to her lips as he inclined his head slightly, acknowledging her question.

"My sister."

"I'm sorry." She nodded once, not quite a bow, in recognition of his loss.

"And you?"

A fair question. She colored slightly, not certain how to respond.

"…no one." No dead, at least. "I was here," she said, a little too quickly. "In the first battle. When Kanryu was killed."

It had been easier to hold to that fiction than explain why they had let Kanryu flee, or her conviction that Mr. Hiko had ended him afterwards. That he had been defeated that morning, in that dank stone cellar, and the death of his body had been only an afterthought.

"Ah." Now he gave her another assessing look, something dawning in his eyes – as if he was putting something together. "May I ask your name?"

"Kaoru." She stifled the sudden, inexplicable urge to lie. Something in the way he was looking at her… "Kaoru Kamiya."

"Of the Kamiya Kasshin?"

She nodded. He blinked, slowly, like a cat who'd just seen something of interest moving in the underbrush.

"I've heard your name before." He extended his hand, then seemed to catch himself and bowed instead. "Forgive my rudeness. My name is Enishi Yukishiro."

Kaoru bowed back. "A pleasure to meet you."

It was automatic and unfelt. She thought he smirked, but it was gone too quickly for her to be sure. His name was familiar, somehow: she couldn't quite place it. It carried bad memories.

"I think I've heard your name, too. Have we met…?"

The wind rustled in the trees, whispering. For a moment his face went completely blank. Then he shrugged, as if it was nothing.

"I occupy a minor position in the new government. Perhaps I was mentioned in a news article. Much like yourself." His voice was pointed.

Kaoru couldn't quite suppress a wince. She hadn't known, when the young woman from the freedman's paper had come by, how seriously her statements would be taken. So she'd told the truth – but no, that wasn't fair. She would have said the same things even if she _had_ known that it would matter to so many people. And in hindsight, she should have known. She had been there, at the end that had been the beginning. She had borne witness: she had been, in her own small way, important to the changing of the tide. Maybe she just hadn't wanted to face it.

It wouldn't be the first time, after all.

"I didn't say anything that wasn't true," she said finally, raising her chin a little. "The freedmen and women of Japan had everything taken from them. It isn't enough to just give them their freedom. We have to help them find their way in society, too, otherwise nothing's really changed."

Another strange flash that was almost a smirk, a quirk of the lips that vanished before she could take it in.

"I don't disagree," he said, mildly enough, and bowed again. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Kamiya, but I was only stopping by for a moment on my way to attend to some other business. If you'll excuse me?"

"Of course." She bowed her farewell. "I hope your business goes well."

An easy script, ingrained courtesy. Nothing to be concerned about. So why did she feel so dizzy?

"As do I," he said gravely, and left.

She was very careful not to watch him go.

~*~

Yahiko was good at not noticing things.

When he'd been on the streets he hadn't noticed the wan, scared look in young girls' faces as they were led away by much older men, because he was samurai and the son of samurai (and always _would_ be, no matter how far he fell; that was the whole point of the thing) and if he'd noticed then he would have had to _do_ something about it, and he was little more than skin and bones himself so what _could_ he do?

He hadn't noticed how much of his dishonorable earnings had found its way into his masters' pockets (always much, much more than they had agreed on, leaving him barely enough to survive on so that he'd have to buy a meal on credit, add to the debt that he never quite managed to pay) because if he had then he'd have had to do something about it, and he was so small.

He hadn't noticed the children much younger than himself begging in the streets, because what could he do except give them what he had, the shame and the risk of thievery for men who did not care if you lived or died and sold you into living death when you slipped up too many times, and maybe that was better than the gutter but how could he live knowing that he'd done that do them and how could he live giving away any of the not-nearly-enough that he had?

Now that he was older, he didn't notice the subtle sneers when he walked into a dojo, wearing his thief-marks openly. He didn't notice how visiting freeborn students would hit a little too hard, push a little too far when he set them against _his_ students and those students had scars on their faces. He didn't notice the sudden rise in whispers when Kaoru visited the Akabeko, and he didn't notice the flashes of offended rage in unmarked faces doing menial labor when freedmen in fine clothing walked by, and he _definitely_ didn't notice the way Kaoru's back stiffened when Kenshin spoke to her, or the confusion and loss in Kenshin's eyes.

Yahiko was _good_ at not noticing things. Especially things he couldn't do anything about. Or wouldn't. He was never sure – it was either cowardice or common sense. He wanted it to be common sense, but he'd seen with his own eyes the price that justice demanded. Saw it still, in Kaoru's weary glances and slumped shoulders, in the students' aching shyness or trembling defiance.

Maybe he was just too afraid to pay it.

But the fact remained; he was good at not noticing things, and one of the things he was careful not to notice, these days, was how often Kaoru was away. She never missed a lesson, never shirked her responsibilities, so what could he say about it?

What could he do, except carry on?

"Senior?"

Yahiko blinked, startled out of his reverie, and looked down. Buntaro was tugging at his pants, an angry frown creasing his mouth as he struggled not to cry.

"What's wrong?" He bent down, bringing himself closer to the little boy's level.

"Ball went up!" Buntaro's lower lip trembled.

"That so?" It was easy to translate his concern, especially when Yahiko glanced up and saw a bright paper ball caught in the branches of one of the twin cherry trees on the dojo grounds. "Well, let's see what we can do about that."

Buntaro held close to his leg as Yahiko sauntered over to the tree, hands in his pockets, and contemplated the situation. It wasn't stuck _that_ high, but this particular tree was harder to climb than the old maple or its twin on the other side of the grounds, and Buntaro was a timid little runt. He was getting stronger every day, but apparently the tree had been a bit much for him: fresh scrapes marked the trunk where he'd tried, without any success, the clamber up the trunk and get it down.

"Bit high up, isn't it?" Yahiko said, mindful of the boy's dignity. Buntaro swallowed and sniffed, nodding his head. "Good thing I'm so tall, huh?"

Yahiko took his wooden sword off his back and extended it up towards where the paper ball trembled in light breeze. A quick, careful flick and it was loose, floating down to Buntaro's waiting hands. The boy caught it, a trembling smile breaking through the stormclouds on his face.

"There we go," Yahiko said. "Ball went up, ball came down."

"Thank you!" Buntaro grinned up at him, gap-toothed and gummy, then scampered off on some urgent child's errand. Hopefully one that didn't involve getting anything else caught in trees. Yahiko watched him go, sucking in a breath when he tripped and fell over some invisible obstacle. But Buntaro picked himself without further tears and pelted around the corner of the house, out of sight. Yahiko relaxed.

"Yahiko?"

Yahiko turned to see Kenshin standing on the porch.

"Yeah?"

"Have you see Kaoru?" There was that worry in Kenshin's eyes, the worry that Yahiko was so careful not to notice. What could he do about it, if he did? He'd been an outsider to their bond. Everyone had. Whatever secret it was that had Kaoru so edgy, whatever strange intimacy had passed between them when Kenshin had been not fully himself… it wasn't anything he'd been privy to.

There was nothing he could do.

"No." Yahiko shook his head. "Sorry."

"Oh." Kenshin seemed to sigh. "It's going to be time for dinner, soon."

"Yeah," Yahiko said, marking the sun where it stood. "Look, she'll probably go to the Akabeko or something," he said, knowing it for a lie. Kaoru never went there without company these days. The whispers upset her too much. "Maybe Tae sent Tsubame up to ask her over."

Kenshin gave him a look, knowing it for a lie. If Tsubame had come over, even on an errand, Yahiko would have seen her and there would be no _maybe_ about it.

"I'm sure it's something like that," Kenshin said vaguely, accepting the falsehood and the spirit in which it was told. It wasn't as if there was anything _he_ could do about it, either. They were equally helpless in this; the more they'd tried, the more tight-locked Kaoru had become. So now they didn't try.

There was nothing they could do.

"Want me to start rounding up the kids?" Yahiko offered, somewhat feebly. Kenshin shook his head.

"I'll do it. Soujiro might need some help, though."

"Got it." Yahiko nodded and headed for the kitchens.

~*~

Kaoru didn't come back until after sunset, and just before full dark. The shadows had stretched long and elastic by the time Yahiko saw her slip through the gates with a vague sense of furtive shame, like a cat who knows that it's been gone too long and the family is worried.

"Evening," he said, though he should have ignored her. Let her late arrival go, as he had so many times previously – as he and Kenshin both had. "Welcome back."

Kaoru stopped.

"…I'm home," she said, too softly.

"You missed dinner, but I think there's some leftovers keeping warm." It was hard to keep anger from tinging his voice, so he didn't try. "The kids missed you."

"I ate at the Akabeko," she lied. She'd gotten good at lying, much better than she'd been six years ago, but Yahiko _knew_ her. She could no more fool him than he could her. "Have they gone to bed already?"

"Yeah." He shifted, shrugging his bamboo sword into a more comfortable position. "You'll have to see them tomorrow, at lessons."

"I thought you did the morning classes on Fridays?"

"Something came up." Nothing had – but he was angry, angry that she was missing, angry that she was pulling away and he didn't want to be. This was all he could do.

"And we can't skip lessons, not so close to the tournament. Yes, I understand."

"All right, then." And then, a bit too slowly. "Thanks."

She inclined her head. "Is there anything else I should know about?"

 _Kenshin is worried_ , he wanted to say. _I'm worried. Tae's worried, Tsubame's worried, the doc's worried Everyone is. Do you really think we haven't noticed? That we don't care? Why won't you talk to us?_

"No," he said, because there was nothing else to say. "That's all."

"Good night, then."

"Night."

And that was that. She walked into the house without further word or acknowledgement and Yahiko sighed, turning towards the well to rinse himself off before bed –

"Good evening," Kenshin said quietly. Yahiko turned back and saw what he'd known he would see: Kenshin standing on the porch and Kaoru frozen just at the steps, her shoes halfway off her feet.

After a too-long moment, she finished sliding out of them and stepped up on to the porch. Kenshin gave way, responding to her movements with practiced ease. Yahiko saw her fists clench tight, just for a moment.

"I was just heading to bed," she said, when the silence became too much to bear. Kenshin swallowed.

"Yes. Of course." He stepped back further. "Sleep well."

"And you."

Then Kaoru was gone. Kenshin looked helplessly at Yahiko. Yahiko looked back. There was nothing he could say, not _it's not your fault_ because maybe it was. Kaoru had been better before Kenshin had come back. Not quite as she was before the war, but better. And he couldn't say _it is your fault_ because that would be cruel and wrong to say, because this was Kenshin's home, too – Kaoru had _promised_ – and because it didn't make _sense_.

Nothing made sense anymore. Like a dream where everything is just a little bit off, a few shades to the left of normal.

Kenshin looked helplessly at him. Yahiko returned the look, and a whole ocean of conversation passed between them. They'd had it so many times thst they didn't need words anymore.

"…night, Kenshin."

"Good night, Yahiko."

And that was that. Another day done, he thought, shivering under a deluge of water, still cool from the well. Another day just like every day since Kenshin had returned, full of Kaoru's secrets and the smothering, silent tension that could almost, if you weren't looking hard enough, be mistaken for peace.

Sooner or later, something was going to give.

When Yahiko slept that night, he dreamed of stormclouds building.


	3. light and paper thin

"Yukishiro!" Tachibana greeted Enishi warmly, an easy smile flitting across his face as he stood and gestured for him to sit. His hands moved broadly, expansive and welcoming. Enishi's greeting was more restrained. It was the most he was able to muster, under the circumstances, but Tachibana paid it no mind. As Enishi had known he would; Tachibana had known him for a long time.

"It's good to see you," Enishi said, settling into the stiff western chair. The little café was one of the handful of 'western-style' teahouses that had sprung up in the new capital, mostly around the Diet and the other government buildings. Raised tables and chairs, outdoor seating under striped silk awnings, and tiny cups of strong coffee offered alongside the more traditional teas. This one – the First Spring Blossoms – had just about mastered the art of the western pastry, which made it Tachibana's particular favorite. He'd always had a sweet tooth.

"How are things?"

"Oh, ticking along." Tachibana dismissed the question with an idle wave of his hand, nodding to a waitress. "What can I get you?"

"It's not necessary. I'll pay."

"Nonsense! I haven't seen you in what, a year and a half? The least I can do is stand you a coffee. Black, wasn't it?"

"Please."

The coffee arrived, accompanied by a crumbling attempt at a madeleine. The sweetness melted on Enishi's tongue like a kiss. He chased it away with a long, bitter draught. They exchanged a few more pleasantries, two friends chatting in the oppressive heat of a late Tokyo summer. Nothing unusual here.

"I hear you're working for Military Affairs, these days?" Enishi asked, when the air had been sufficiently cleared. Tachibana made a face.

"Yes, under Itome. Secretary to an undersecretary. But it's a start, don't you think? And you're in the Home Office, as I recall. Special assignment?"

"Aren't I always?" Enishi said with a wryness he did not feel, anticipating the next move.

"Well, no point using a dagger as an arrow, isn't that how Motokawa put it back in the day? The right tool for the right job." Tachibana looked smug as he said it, his assumptions confirmed. Correctly, in this case. Enishi was currently on special assignment for the Ministry of Home Affairs, a rather transparent euphemism for domestic spying. There was a certain irony in it. Pretending to be a spy in order to _be_ a spy, faking loyalty to country instead of cause, to the future and not the unshriven past…

The black coffee swirled in the paper-thin china. For a moment he glimpsed his sister in the shimmering surface. Her eyes were dark, unreadable; then she shifted and blurred, and her black eyes were suddenly blue and wary, her chin newly pointed and raised in uncertain defiance.

Kamiya.

He tilted his cup, shattering the vision, and attended to his purpose. Tachibana had received his confirmation and doubtless felt himself clever for realizing the obvious. Now was a good time to move.

"I got a look at the budget proposal for next fiscal year. It's a bit strange, don't you think?"

"How do you mean?" Tachibana blinked, naïve, and squinted in the light. Enishi didn't doubt that he was sincere. Tachibana had never been bright, but he was loyal. A true samurai, faithful unto death and incapable of questioning his superiors. Not a clever thing to be, in this half-born world.

"The military's asking for a rather large allocation," Enishi said, keeping it light. Just gossip. Shop talk between two old government hands. Nothing to see here. "They want domestic spending cut for it?"

"Oh, that." Tachibana rolled his eyes. "You should hear the Freedom Party shriek over it! I know, I know," he said, raising his hand to stave off the objection he expected to hear without checking to see if it was forthcoming. "They have Katsura's deathbed endorsement and all the rest of the old idealists behind them. But they're just not being _practical_."

"Oh?"

"Look, it's not like we didn't _try_ ," Tachibana continued, warming to his subject. "But the unrest is getting worse! There was a riot in Kyoto last week, did you hear? The police calmed it down before any serious damage was done, thank god, but some very valuable property was destroyed. A few people were injured. And all because of the freedmen's movement."

"I wasn't aware they were involved," Enishi said, mildly. "Didn't it start in one of the freeborn neighborhoods?"

"Because of anger over the aid priorities, yes. Freedmen and their families are given special consideration over the freeborn. It makes for bad blood. And honestly, with the foreign situation as it is, we can't afford to keep focusing on minor domestic issues. They're free, now, they have the same chance as anyone. Anything else is a gift, and we've already been more than generous."

"I see." Enishi sipped his coffee. A solid play, traditional but nonetheless effective. Starve the dogs and sooner or later they would turn on each other in a snarling mass of fangs and flying fur. From that chaos, opportunity would rise. "I haven't been focusing much on foreign affairs, lately," he lied,

"America's been making noises. We've finally managed to force a revision of the treaties and they don't like losing their foothold out here, let me tell you. Britain wants them kept out, so they're on our side, for now – though that may change if the Freedom Party doesn't stop pushing for sanctions over the sugar plantations. The rest of Europe's waiting to see what happens."

"And China?"

Tachibana shrugged. "They have their own problems. Between the British and the rebels, they're stretched too thin to care about us."

"That's a relief, at least." It was good to have some confirmation of what he'd expected – that he'd judge the purpose behind the shifts in play correctly, at least on the domestic side. China, though…

China would be difficult. All signs pointed towards the mainland as a staging-ground for what was increasingly resembling a nascent coup, and he had very few connections there. He needed insight; Qing Yao's latest reports had been frustratingly unclear. Not her fault. The situation was always difficult in China. A few free provinces in the mountains did not a new nation make, but try telling that to the rebellion's leadership.

She did what she could, but her cause came first. It was something Enishi could understand. Still, the lack of firsthand information from Shanghai was troubling: most of the slave-masters who had fled Japan during the war had settled there, and the gods alone knew what that nest of vipers had managed to cook up.

"It could be worse," Tachibana said in agreement. "But it's not good, either. We need that funding."

"I can see how difficult it is," Enishi said, and turned the conversation towards more pleasant topics, such as courtship. Tachibana's mother had been sending him out on matchmaking dates since he'd been appointed to his new position, and one of them had finally borne fruit. Tachibana was effusive in his praise. Enishi let him talk, responding with interested noises at the appropriate intervals as his mind wandered.

Tomoe's face. Kamiya's face. His sister hadn't wanted him to seek her out – or _him_ , the boy who'd led her to her death (a man full grown now). And it didn't serve his purpose here, so he hadn't. It had been an accident, and perhaps that was why his sister seemed to approve. Or at least, she didn't disapprove.

Himura was a known quantity. The role he'd played was understood, and his fate decided, but Kamiya…

She was still an unknown. She'd kept her head down during the war, her reputation growing by word-of-mouth, and he'd assumed based on her history that she was precisely what she appeared to be. A kind, charitable woman and a true believer, acting solely out of her own conviction, without concern for the game. A bit of a wild card, but not terribly so: she could be relied upon to react in certain ways, and the corner of the board that she could affect was vanishingly small in the scheme of things.

And then she'd given that interview.

It was the first and so far only time she'd made any public statement. The reporter from the Daily Free News had asked some very pointed questions, and Kamiya's answers had been in line with some of the most radical thinkers in the abolitionist movement. Reparations, universal suffrage, debt forgiveness… it had been a minor coup, given the role she'd played in the war and the sheer number of people she'd helped. Such things did not go unnoticed… and Himura, an object of curiosity wherever he went, had not been shy about the role she'd played in _his_ story.

Yet he'd never been able to find any association between her and the radical leadership. As far as he could tell, she'd arrived at these views on her own. She was, and remained, independent of any political party and without any particular influence in the game.

It was an anomaly and he'd noted it as such, filing it away in case it became useful one day.

Perhaps it was useful now?

He put the question silently to his sister, and she said nothing. Only looked at him, grave and calm.

This was his choice to make, then.

Her eyes had been a remarkable shade of blue. Like his own – no, darker. More intense.

He had not come to Tokyo to seek her out, or solve her riddle. But he had found her nonetheless, and perhaps that was fate. If he happened to cross paths with her again… well. It was a foolish man who ignored the proddings of the universe.

If they happened to find each other again, there could be no harm in speaking with her.

~*~

"All right, all right, hold still." Kenshin craned his neck, counting silently under his breath as the children milled excitedly in the courtyard. One, two, three, four, five, six…

"Where's Suzume?"

"Still looking for her ribbon," Mayumi reported with a toss of her head and an exasperated roll of her eyes. "She says she won't go without it."

Suzume had several ribbons, but only one had been a gift from Kaoru – the blue silk one that had matched her eyes – and therefore only one was _the_ ribbon. Suzume wore it for luck, and on special occasions. Which, Kenshin supposed, a trip to the theatre qualified as. Especially for a nine-year-old girl.

 _Almost ten!_ he could hear her protesting, and smiled.

"We're going to be late if she takes much longer," Soujiro commented, straightening Buntaro's shirt. "Shall I help her find it?"

"Please." Kenshin nodded his thanks. Soujiro stood, brushing off his knees, and went inside. Kaoru and Yahiko passed him as they came out. Kenshin gave them a carefully casual glance, trying not to let his eyes linger on Kaoru. Trying not to let her see his worry.

"Everyone ready?" Yahiko asked, absently scooping up Mariko to rest on his shoulders. She squealed in delight, grabbing at his hair, and he only winced a little.

"Not yet." Kenshin could see Kaoru in the corner of his eye, standing slightly apart from the group. "Suzume's looking for her ribbon. Soujiro went to help her."

"Uncle, uncle." Buntaro tugged at Kenshin's pants, his small face creased in misery. " _Itches_."

"Let me see, then."

He crouched down to fuss at the little boy's clothing, grateful for the distraction. Kaoru so rarely went out these days. She'd almost declined this trip as well, except that the tickets had been a gift from Tae. So she'd agreed to go, though he didn't doubt that the fact that the invitation was for _everyone_ played a large part in that.

He'd tried inviting her places before, just the two of them. She always had an excuse. Even if it was only a quick run down to the market for extra tofu.

It didn't matter, he told himself as he arranged Buntaro's clothing. The important thing was that she was getting out in public, doing something fun with her family. Small steps, that was the trick; it had taken _him_ months to get to the point where he could even speak easily, after all. There was no point pushing her faster than she was willing to go.

 _He'd_ had good reason, though, some dark corner of his mind muttered rebelliously. _Kaoru_ had never –

Kenshin forced the thought back, swallowing shame. Whatever Kaoru was going through had a different cause than his own struggles. That didn't make them less painful. No one had emerged from the war unscarred, and everyone bore those injuries differently. It was important to remember that.

Especially now, when he could feel her eyes on him, that complicated absence ringing in her gaze. He didn't look up to meet them.

It might scare her off.

"We're back!" Soujiro announced cheerfully, emerging from the house with Suzume's hand clasped in his. Suzume was beaming, Kaoru's ribbon tied neatly in her hair. "Everyone ready?"

"I think so." Kenshin gave Buntaro's clothing one last tug. "Better now, li'l Bun?"

"Bun _taro_ ," he insisted, pouting.

"Buntaro, yes. I'm sorry." The boy had decided, recently, that he was too old for baby names. Which, at all of five years old, he wasn't – but it was helping him feel a little more confident, and that was a fine thing.

Kenshin stood and made a final count. Everyone going was present – Mr. Tanaka and Mrs. Nakamura had declined, saying that it would be nice to have the house to themselves for a while – and everyone present was ready to go. Ribbons found, clothing straightened, odds and ends safely stowed in various bags and pockets.

No point delaying.

"Okay! Let's get going then, shall we?"

The mob straggled out from the gates, the older children watching the younger while Kenshin kept an eye on all of them. Kaoru hung back as they passed through and Yahiko stayed with her, catching her easily up in conversation with himself and Soujiro. Mostly, Kenshin knew, to make sure she didn't have second thoughts halfway to the theatre.

Kenshin didn't bother trying to join in.

~*~

The servant onstage recoiled, singing his horror at what he'd seen in his master's bedroom. The narrator stepped forward, keening out a summary of the play thus far – the promise between the student and the maiden, the aunt's treachery, the joyful rediscovery of each other, and the shock of the servant's discovery: that the maiden was indeed dead, and the student had been embracing a corpse all these long nights. It ended with a plaintive cry for mercy, begging the gods to show pity to these two lovers, whose feelings for each other endured beyond death and dared to violate heaven's laws.

Then the act was over. The audience shuffled and muttered, people rising to their feet for a walk or taking out lunchboxes where they sat and digging into their dinners. Kenshin shifted, gently lifting Buntaro and Mariko from where they'd fallen asleep on his lap.

"Does anyone want anything?" he asked.

"You heading to the snack stands?" Yahiko looked up from where he was busy helping Soujiro get their own lunchboxes distributed.

"I thought I might." Kenshin shrugged. "It would be nice to have some sweets, don't you think?"

"There was a stand selling a variety pack," Soujiro suggested. "That might be best."

"That sounds good." Kenshin stood. "Kaoru, do you – "

But when he turned to where she had been sitting, she wasn't there. Yahiko gave Kenshin a helpless look.

"I think she went to the bathroom," he said, somewhat feebly. Kenshin smiled, or at any rate managed to get the corners of his mouth to turn up. It wouldn't do any good to worry the younger students; they already had the sense that something was wrong, though so far Kenshin and Yahiko had managed to keep most of it from them. The war had touched them deeply enough as it was. There was no need to give them any more adult fears to grapple with.

"I hope she doesn't miss the opening of the next act," Kenshin said lightly. "Otherwise she'll be confused."

"Maybe you should keep an eye out for her?" Soujiro suggested it with perfect innocence, his eyes too-pleasantly devoid of insinuation. Which generally meant that he knew exactly what was going on.

"I'll try." Kenshin said it slowly, reluctantly. It had been about a month since the last time he or Yahiko had seriously tried to pull Kaoru out of her shell. Maybe it was time… and probably it was futile, but they had to keep trying. The alternative was just – letting her go – and the thought of _that_ was like ice in his veins.

"If I see her," he said, more firmly, "I'll make sure she gets back in time."

Yahiko gave him an understanding look.

"Good luck," he said, and nothing more.

~*~

The lobby was crowded with people chattering and calling to snack vendors, moving briskly to and from their various destinations. Kenshin took a deep, slow breath as he entered, moving carefully through the oblivious throng. The cacophony reached up to the theatre's high beams, echoing outwards to fill the space with the happy noise of people enjoying themselves, and that was a good thing.

People brushed by him without a second glance. He paused for a moment, considering – then he moved to the snack vendor, figuring it was better to get that out of the way first. The line moved quickly, and the vendor took his money and handed him his order with no more than a smile and a glance. There were too many people to bother doing otherwise. Heartened by that, Kenshin took the lacquered box and picked his way carefully out of the lobby, looking for someplace quiet and out of the way. He'd be more likely to find Kaoru in a place like that. If she was still in the building at all.

There was a staircase leading off from the lobby that wasn't blocked off. Kenshin took it, and found that it led to a balcony wrapping around the back of the theatre. A few people were on it, chatting quietly and smoking pipes or western cigarettes. He walked along it, and – as he'd thought – found Kaoru at the very end, far from the loosely-grouped smokers. She was standing next to the railing, looking out over the rooftops with her arms crossed over her chest and her hands tucked into her sleeves.

"Did you need some fresh air?" he asked, putting on a smile. Kaoru started, turning with wide eyes that darkened when she saw him.

"Yes," she said. And then – her throat working as if it pained her to speak – "Is the act over already?"

"It is." He shifted the box of sweets, moving to stand not quite at her side. The sun was setting, staining the air with brilliant gold and orange. Lights were coming on across the city, spilling yellow into the streets like knocked-over ink. "You missed the big twist."

"I've heard this story before," she said absently.

"Oh." It wasn't exactly an invitation, but it was more than he'd gotten in months. Tentatively, he ventured a question. "Do you like it?"

"Not really." Her arms seemed to tighten around herself. "It's too horrible."

"What do you mean?"

"The way she comes back…" Her eyes were fixed on the horizon, staring blankly at the crimson line of the mountains as the sun lowered herself slowly to sleep. "Bothering him like that, when he'd moved on with his life. She's so _selfish!_ "

It was very nearly a cry. Kenshin's breath caught tight with uncertainty.

"He could have been happy if she'd just left him alone! But she didn't. She couldn't let him go, couldn't let him live his own life. She had to keep coming back. Like she had any right to him. The dead should know better than to bother the living."

"But she loved him." The words came out before he'd quite thought them through, rising with the tide of nausea in his stomach. "She couldn't just let him go…"

He'd understood the maiden's feelings. Hadn't he also come back from a kind of death for someone he loved?

"She could have _tried_." Kaoru's head bowed as if under some terrible yoke. "If she really loved him, she would have wanted him to be happy, even if it couldn't be with her."

"How could he be happy without the person he loved?" Kenshin asked it quietly, too many words swelling incoherent in his tightening throat. "If he didn't want to see her again, wouldn't he have turned her away?"

"It doesn't matter!" Silk flurried in the fading sunlight. Kaoru slammed the heels of her hands against the railing, pushing away to face him. "She knew he loved her! She knew he wouldn't turn her away! She's selfish and horrible and cruel, and she destroys him because she doesn't have the strength to _let go!_ "

Kenshin stared at her, the box of sweets clutched loosely in his numb fingers. Her eyes were wild, unseeing, and the blood-red of sunset gleamed in her black hair. For a moment they stood suspended on the brink of – _something_ , some revelation – and he held himself perfectly still, afraid to fall. And more afraid of not falling.

Then she came back to herself.

"…I'm sorry." She tucked her hands back in her sleeves. "It's a good play. I just don't like the ending."

Before Kenshin could say anything more she was pushing past him and walking away, mumbling something about getting back before the next act started. He let her go, standing poleaxed in the gathering twilight. Whispers followed in her wake: there weren't a lot of people this far away from the stairs, but there were enough to have witnessed the confrontation. They looked at him strangely. He ignored them, focusing on the rising tide of panic in his pounding veins. On remembering to breathe: first one breath, then another. It was important not to hold them in. Important to keep letting the air out. Taking more in. Letting it out.

Carefully, he put down the box of sweets and turned to grip the railings, staring sightlessly out at the dying day. Trying to remember that this was _here_ and not _there_ , that raised voices and angry words didn't mean that blows would follow – had _never_ meant that, not with her.

In time, his heart slowed. His shoulders sagged, tension easing away and leaving a dull, sallow grief behind.

_Selfish…_

Maybe he had been. Maybe he never should have come back. Maybe he had misunderstood.

Maybe it was for the best that she'd never gotten his last letter.

It hadn't been a hard conclusion to draw, just one he hadn't wanted to think about. He was, after all the person she avoided most. She would speak – a little – with Yahiko and Soujiro, with her students, with Tae or Dr. Oguni. But not him. Meaningless courtesies were all he ever got, when he'd been closer to her than any of them…

A closeness that she'd never wanted. Never chosen.

But it couldn't be him. Or it couldn't be _just_ him, because it wasn't as if she was all smiles and laughter when he wasn't around. Yahiko had told him as much, and Yahiko wouldn't lie about something like that, wouldn't feign that kind of worry, so that meant that it had to be more than just – his unwanted presence in her life –

But what if that was part of it? What _if_ he was the ghost, dragging her down and killing her slowly with memories of the past?

He remembered her crying. She had wept – so many nights, silently, in her sleep, while he watched unmoving from his place behind the screen. Not knowing what to make of it, not until afterwards, when he'd thought that she wept from grief for the broken world, for what had been done to him and countless others. And now…

Now he didn't know what to think.

Maybe it hadn't only been grief for the world-that-was, that she'd fought to change. Maybe it had been for herself, too, dragged more deeply into the war than she'd ever wanted to be.

Maybe she'd given too much of herself when she'd led him from the darkness. Left too much of her heart behind.

Maybe it was his fault, after all.

~*~

Yahiko knew that something was wrong when Kaoru came back and Kenshin didn't follow. He started to ask if she'd seen him, but before he could get more than a few words out the action on stage started up again and she had an excuse not to answer. So she didn't.

Onstage, the student's servants were meeting in frightened conclave, discussing the revelation. Yahiko watched for a moment, uncertain, and then excused himself. It was a little rude – he had to climb over a lot of people – but it was important, he justified inwardly, apologizing profusely and low at the row moving grumblingly out of his way. The servants argued, trapped in agonies of indecision that faded into so much dull background rumbling as he left the theatre, looking for Kenshin.

It took a while. The sun had slid well below the horizon by the time he ventured out onto the balcony and found Kenshin standing at the far end, his hands wrapped tight around the railings as he stared out at the darkening sky. The box of sweets sat at his feet, apparently forgotten.

"Hey," Yahiko said, for lack of anything else worth saying.

"Yahiko." Kenshin blinked, giving himself a small, sharp shake. "I'm sorry. Has the play started again already?"

"A while back." Yahiko jerked his head over his shoulder. "Probably better to wait for the next act, now."

"Oh." Kenshin's hands tightened on the rails. "Sorry."

"What for?" Yahiko rested his forearms on the railing, clasping his hands loosely together. Silence stretched for a moment between them, unspoken questions answered without words. Laughter rang from the restaurants and teahouses below them, nighttime revelers getting an early start while more sedate pleasure-seekers began to trickle home. The smell of meat and drink and too much perfume wafted up. Yahiko sneezed.

"Do you think…?" Kenshin start to say, and then stopped. Yahiko glanced over at him. The older man's face was strained. A muscle in his jaw twitched, as though he was grinding his teeth.

"Do I think what?"

"...Is it my fault?"

The words came out slowly, dripping like thick tar, and Yahiko closed his eyes for a moment. The stars glittered coldly through the haze of city smoke, far outshining the thin sliver of the just-risen moon. He studied them, searching for an answer, and couldn't find one.

He knew what Kenshin was asking, of course. He'd asked it himself a thousand times: _is it my fault? Is it someone else's?_ _Was there something we could have done?_

He'd never found an answer, though.

"I don't know," was all he said. All that he could say, in the end. Because only one person knew the answer to their questions, and she wasn't going to give it to them anytime soon. If she even knew it herself.

"For what it's worth, though," Yahiko continued, not bothering to feel the anger and worry and grief that sat under his heart like a cold stone, "I'm glad you're here."

"Thank you," Kenshin said, after a pause that was nearly too long. They stood together on the balcony until the rising chatter from inside indicated that the act had ended and another intermission had begun. The moon had climbed nearly a quarter-way up the arc of the sky, vanishing above the edge of the balcony's roof, and all they could see were the dim, cold stars.

~*~

It was the middle of the day, and the memorial park was quiet. Kaoru had been perched on her preferred rock at the lakeside for the better part of an hour now, thinking of nothing in particular. And certainly not of last night, and the disastrous conversation on the balcony where she had let too much slip, set free words that could not be taken back –

Kenshin's face hovered in her memory like an accusation. She closed her eyes and tilted her head towards the weak autumn sun, banishing the vision under the spots behind her eyes.

It wasn't his fault. He had come to her needing and she had given, because that was who she was, and it wasn't his _fault_ that she had failed to sever the bond between them. To set him free. That she had drawn him back like the demon-ghost in the play, over and over, distracting him with shades and shadows when he could have been moving forward and making a life of his own.

It wasn't his fault. It was hers. Always hers. She had taken the burden of his life on her shoulders and held it there for too long, and now she couldn't let it go. Couldn't let him go. Didn't dare accept what he was offering her – what she had no right to take – and couldn't bear to send him away. Not again.

Her fault. Her weakness.

"Come here often?"

She opened her eyes, startled. Yukishiro stood nearby, his hands tucked neatly in his pockets. He'd spoken lightly, almost flirtatiously – but there was that strange, brittle intensity in his eyes that told the easy courtesy for a lie.

"It's quiet here," she said, not certain what else to say. "Easy to think."

"Mind if I join you?" He nodded towards the ground near her rock. She bowed her head, not wanting his company but not knowing how to decline without unnecessary rudeness.

He settled himself beside her, bending one knee up against his chest. One hand braced against the ground at his side; the other rested idly under his chin, a finger tapping thoughtfully at the corner of his mouth as he studied her. She ignored his dissecting gaze as best she could, staring out over the shimmering lake. A handful of carp swam up and hovered in the water, their mouths opening and closing with greedy plops.

"They always want more, don't they?" Yukishiro said, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"I don't have anything for them." Kaoru shifted uneasily, her chest tightening at the sight of the demanding mouths, the vacant eyes. Scales glimmered under the murky waters, flashing red and white and summer-gold. Yukishiro rummaged in his pockets.

"A moment…"

Kaoru glanced over at him, surprised. There was a packet of rice balls in his gloved hand. He held them out to her, offering.

"I'm sorry?"

He shrugged.

"I like feeding them, too."

"…Thank you."

Kaoru took the rice balls, suddenly aware of how close her skin came to his as she did. She pulled her hand back quickly, picking idly at the wrapper until it was undone and shredding the first treat that her fingers touched.

"You didn't answer my question," Yukishiro said idly, looking out over the lake.

"What?" Her fingers ceased their movements, the tips sticky with sweet residue.

"Do you come here often?"

Kaoru blinked, covering her confusion by tossing a chunk of rice at the gape-mouthed fish. They swarmed it, tearing and battling for a scrap. He had expected an answer to that? She had thought it was only a courtesy…

"I suppose," she said at length, not sure that she wanted to be truthful and finding herself too tired to lie. "It's a good place to think."

"And do you have a great deal to think about, these days?" He nodded as he said it, as if something had been confirmed. And she hadn't even answered the question.

"I don't know." A spark of indignation made her shift uncomfortable. Who was he, to keep probing her like this? Didn't he have any manners? Couldn't he tell she was only being polite – or did he just not care?

"Ah." That strange, knowing smirk again. "That's something to think about, isn't it?"

"What is?" she snapped, the world coming into a strange kind of focus. He was _laughing_ at her. Not out loud, but she could see the humor in his eyes. How _dare_ he –

Yukishiro pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his smirk deepening.

"Whatever it is that you have to think about."

Kaoru glared.

" _If_ I had something to think about," she said, looking deliberately away from him, "I certainly wouldn't share it with someone I barely know. I come here to be _alone_."

Her heart throbbed in her chest, aching strangely. There was a kind of roaring in her ears, a stretching tingle in her skin. Like the air before a storm. She wasn't acting like herself –

"I'm sorry."

She stole a glance back at Yukishiro. He was standing now, brushing dirt off his knees.

"I didn't mean to intrude," he said, with a bow. "I can see that I was discourteous. Please accept my sincere apologies."

His white hair parted over the back of his neck as he bowed, revealing the pale skin there, and the first knob of his spine. Vulnerable –

_Red hair falling like fire over slender shoulders, shaking with fear as he knelt and she gripped her arms so tight that the skin bruised; she found her own fingermarks later, in the bath, ten perfect circles of blue-black blossoming on arms too weak to hold on –_

"Don't _do_ that!" she cried, not seeing Yukishiro at all. He looked up, startled.

"Pardon?"

She clutched at her collar, taking in a shaking breath.

"Don't bow that low. Please."

Yukishiro furrowed his brow, staring at her. Kaoru shuddered, bracing herself for the inevitable questions, for his careful withdrawal, for his _pity_.

Instead he straightened.

"It seems I can't help giving offense today," he said, ruefully. "Normally I'm much more charming."

"I scarcely believe _that_ , given what you've done so far.," she tried to snap, and failed. So she crossed her arms over her chest instead and fixed him with her best stare, daring him to try and salvage the conversation.

"Perhaps you might give me the chance to prove myself?" He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, smiling in a way that was a little too sharp, a touch too wide. Kaoru could have screamed – he just wasn't going to take the hint, was he?

"Why does it matter to you so much?" she demanded.

"I am sorry." There was real chagrin in his voice, but that too-sharp, too-wide smile never wavered. The blue fire burning behind his eyes flared. "I only – found myself curious, after our last meeting. I was… intrigued by what you said in that interview. To encounter you once was a coincidence, but twice seemed… an opportunity."

Coincidence. She nearly laughed. As if it had been coincidence that he came to this place with food for the fish, mirroring how he'd found her.

"An opportunity for what?" She'd meant it to come out arch and mocking. Her voice cracked halfway through. She cleared her throat. "I can't imagine why I'd be of interest to anyone."

"You would be surprised, Ms. Kamiya." Now his voice was grave; now his bright-burning eyes darkened, serious and focused. "Very surprised, I think."

To that, she had no response. The wind rose and tugged at their clothing with the scent of autumn, of burning leaves and roasted chestnuts and sacred pyres. The fish splashed at the edge of the water all glimmer-scaled and vacant, their mouths opening and closing as their dull eyes stared relentlessly at the world they had no part in.

"Your history is not unknown," he said finally, and there was no false flirtation in it, no smirking pleasure at his own cleverness. "And now, having met you, I find myself wondering what kind of person you truly are. That is all."

She didn't want to believe him.

Kaoru turned away, considering. A sincere question deserved a sincere answer, for all she didn't want to give it.

"If you want to know that," she said, keeping her chin high as befitted the daughter of samurai, "there's to be a tournament shortly. My school will be competing. There is no truer expression of myself than the values of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu."

Half a lie, and yet not: everything that he could possibly be interested would be there, carried on the wooden blades of her students. The only answer that mattered lived in the strain of muscle and the blaze of spirit. The _will to protect_ – the heart and soul of everything she had ever done. All that she had ever striven to be.

"Indeed." She didn't turn to face him, but she felt his eyes on her. "Then I'll be sure to attend."

"I hope to see you there," Kaoru said, with painful courtesy, and waited long minutes before turning as he walked away.


	4. my black eye casts no shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE
> 
> So, my grandmother was unexpectedly hospitalized, and passed away a few months ago. Then my cat, who I'd had since I was eleven, died a few days later. Then the kitten I got a few weeks after my first cat's death, also died of FIP. And on top of that I was starting a new job. So that's why this sort of was not a thing for a while.
> 
> But. I'm back, bitches.
> 
> Enjoy.

The competition hall rang with chatter to the top of its vaulted roofs. The crowd jostled excitedly for seats. A few competitors were already on the floor, chatting as they went through warmups. Their teachers watched from the sidelines, eyeing their students with varying mixtures of pride, concern, and the occasional hint of irritation. All did their best not to let their feelings show. Such a display would be shameful.

"Uncle Ken!"

"Yes?" Kenshin turned to see Ayame jogging towards him, her neat new competition uniform hanging in crisp falls. She skidded to a stop.

"Suzume can't get her ribbon done and she won't let me do it. She says you have to or it doesn't count."

"Oh dear." He glanced at the western clock hanging on the far wall, squinting to make out the numbers. "The juniors are going on in an hour," he said, dismayed. "Will she come out? I can't just go into the lady's dressing room…"

"I think so. Want me to go in and get her?"

"Please. Tell her I'll fix her ribbon, but she has to come out first."

"All right," Ayame said dubiously, and jogged back off towards the dressing room. Well. Dressing closet, really. There weren't many women or girls competing, and the tournament organizers hadn't quite known what to do with them. For a while it had looked as if there might not be any kind of changing space for them at all, but then Sir Maekawa had pulled the most loudly-protesting coordinator aside and said something low and hard in his ear. The man had frowned and clearly wanted to object, but Sir Maekawa had glared and shortly after that a small storage room had acquired a sign indicating that it was for the convenience and comfort of the female competitors.

It wasn't much. But it was a start.

Ayame vanished into the dressing room. Kenshin kept one eye on the door, the other on the students going through their paces. Nervous energy crackled through the air like heat-lightning, grounding itself in a different way in every student there. Some clustered together, chatting idly; others worked alone, focusing intently on the same basic exercises. And a few – a very few – mugged for the crowd or their teachers, clowning to stave off their nerves.

Only a handful of the young faces out there were slave-marked. They tended to stick together, and their freeborn peers gave them wide and uncertain berth. But no one bothered them. For all the whispers and glances, no one openly questioned their right to be there.

Not much. But a start.

Ayame emerged after a few minutes, dragging her reluctant sister behind her. Suzume's hair was tangled and she clutched the ribbon that Kaoru had given her tight in one small hand, a comb in her other. Her little face was scrunched with worry.

"It won't come _right_ ," she nearly wailed. "I wanna look like Big Sister and I _can't_ – "

"Now, now." Kenshin patted her on soothingly on the shoulder, guiding her over to a convenient bench and sitting her down. "Not to worry, let's see what can be done."

He pried the comb gently from her hand and went to work detangling. Suzume wiggled, trying to get comfortable. Ayame settled herself on the bench beside her sister, rubbing her gently on the back.

"Uncle Ken's gonna fix it, all right? Now be brave, like a proper sword-lady."

"Kay." Suzume straightened her back, knotting her fingers tight around Kaoru's ribbon. Kenshin plucked it gently away and she let it go.

"You wanted your hair up?"

Suzume nodded.

"Like Big Sister!"

He had to chuckle at that, and at how the worry knotting her little brow smoothed over as she felt him pulling her hair up high in a facsimile of Kaoru's ponytail. Suzume's hair wasn't quite long enough to imitate the elegant fall of black whipping out behind her idol, but he could get a fair approximation. And he could certainly tie the lovely blue ribbon in the same simple bow that Kaoru preferred.

"There we are," he said, ruffling her bangs. "All fixed."

"Thank you!" she cried, hopping off the bench and flinging her arms around his waist. He hugged her back, and then Ayame took her hand.

"C'mon, let's go warm up."

"'Kay!"

She went away easily, holding her older sister's hand. Kenshin watched them go, a vague sense of loss knotting under his heart. If only every problem were so easily solved.

"Excuse me," someone said behind him.

"Yes?" Kenshin turned and looked up, blinking at the height of the young man behind him. "Can I help you?"

"Are you a representative from the Kamiya dojo?" The stranger's mouth twisted in something that might have been a smile, if not for the anticipation in his eyes. As if there was a joke that only he could see, and he was waiting eagerly for the punchline.

Kenshin took a step backwards, uneasy.

"I am." He resisted the urge to cross his arms, forcing himself to stand loose and calm as the stranger looked down at him with amusement flickering behind his calm façade. Amusement, and something far stranger. "Do you need something?"

"Ms. Kamiya invited me to observe the tournament." A flash of vicious grin. "Might she be available?"

"Not at the moment. She's meeting with the other referees. I doubt they'll be finished before the tournament starts." Without quite thinking about it, Kenshin angled himself to stand between the stranger and the students warming up. His heart rattled in his chest, unease growing as the stranger shrugged, seemingly indifferent.

"A pity. I'll have to speak to her later."

"May I have your name?" Kenshin asked it as innocently as he could. "I'll make sure to tell her you came by."

The stranger paused and looked at him. The sense of expectation grew heavier, like the air before a lightning strike. He pushed his small, round glasses up his nose, and the twist in his mouth became a definite smirk.

"I am Enishi Yukishiro," he said simply. "I believe you once knew my sister?"

Kenshin's blood turned to ice. The stranger – _Enishi_ – Tomoe's brother, her younger brother, who'd gone off to war and fought in her memory. Who never saw his father, and sent letters only twice a year.

He searched for words and found nothing, only a roaring behind his eyes. Kenshin swallowed, opening his mouth to try and deliver some inanity except that his tongue was lead and his throat was wood and there was no air in his lungs.

"I see Ms. Kamiya didn't mention me." Enishi crossed his arms. "I suppose there wasn't any time."

"I – suppose." Kenshin said weakly. "She invited you, did she?"

Enishi gave him a strange look. "Yes."

"Ah. I – hope you've been well, this past year."

"Well enough." He shrugged. "And you?"

The glee was gone from his voice: he might as well have been an old acquaintance catching up, and not the predator he'd been a few moments ago. Or had he been?

Kenshin straightened his shoulders, determined not to hide.

"I was sorry to have missed you when I visited Mr. Yukishiro," he said warily. "He said you were with the intelligence division…?"

"The Home Office, now. You live at the Kamiya school?"

"For the past year, yes." Kenshin paused, then rallied. The sense of vicious glee had retreated so completely that perhaps... "Would you – that is to say, perhaps we should speak more privately, later on?"

Because he had never had the chance to apologize, as he had with Mr. Yukishiro, to talk things through and set things right. And he should; he owed the past that much. If Enishi was willing.

"What about?" Enishi looked almost startled. Then he blinked.

"Ah," he said, understanding in his voice. "No, I don't think that's necessary."

It was Kenshin's turn to startle in confusion at the ease in Enishi's voice, the casual way he tossed it off. Enishi smiled in a way that was almost genuine, except that there was something stiff and broken in it. Like a bit of leather that had stretched until it cracked.

"My father told me what you talked about when you visited him. There's not much more to say on the matter, is there? Unless you left something out…?"

"No," Kenshin said, quietly. "I didn't."

"Well then." Another shrug. "I look forward to the tournament."

He bowed and walked away.

~*~

Enishi felt Himura's eyes on him as he walked away and didn't care. His sister's eyes grew remote, disapproving: he frowned in response, and a youngster who had nearly pelted into him bowed in apology. He didn't acknowledge the gesture.

Perhaps it hadn't been fair of him to ambush Himura like that. But then again, what was fair in this world?

He found a spot towards the back of the seats reserved for spectators, where the crowd was thin and he wouldn't have neighbors. He didn't want any, and by the looks he garnered as he moved through, no one wanted him as one. All to the good, then.

The referees began to file out of the back room, apparently finished with their meeting. Tension crackled through the air as a hundred-odd students slowed and then stopped their warmup, turning inexorably to focus on their teachers and judges. This wasn't a terribly important competition, being so early in the seasons – more an exhibition than anything else – but it was the first to allow freed and freeborn to compete side-by-side, as equals under law if not in practice.

For that reason alone, he might have come to see it.

His sister shook his head, indulging him, and faded as Kamiya strode confidently from the back room to her appointed station. She walked with measured grace, ignoring the quick, sharp spike of whispers as she was recognized. Like daggers glinting for a moment beneath a bandit's cloak.

Enishi leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees, and watched.

The opening ceremonies went by in a blur of protocol. He spared barely a glance for the other masters, focusing on Kamiya and her students. They made a good showing, as far as he could tell: swordsmanship had never been his particular specialty, and the arcane rules and careful forms of the competition circuit were thoroughly divorced from anything he'd picked up on the battlefield. But the crowd seemed impressed. Himura, sitting close to the front and impossible to miss given his head of red hair, was practically glowing.

He was probably in love with her. Well, Enishi couldn't blame him for that, given what he'd been through and what she'd done for him. Though he wondered if Kamiya returned his feelings. She found time to meet the eyes of everyone else in her school's cheering section, but barely glanced his way. Almost as if she was trying to avoid seeing him.

Curious, that.

Equally curious were the fellows milling nearby. He watched them from the corner of his eye, wary. They seemed far too old and hardened to be competitors, and too rough to have any friends or relatives in the tournament. Their clothes were neat enough, but the _feel_ of them…

Thugs-for-hire, he was nearly certain. What could they be doing here?

Handfuls of them broke off, heading in various directions away from the main hall and towards the rest of the building. And the exits.

Enishi rose, his face schooled in an expression of pure disinterest, and sauntered off behind a group headed towards the restrooms.

~*~

"Wash, wash, wash," Buntaro chanted happily, rubbing his hands together under the stream of water as Kenshin poured it from the ladle. Kenshin smiled absently, his mind elsewhere. Miles away and years ago, in a small house on the outskirts of a smaller city where he'd first met Tomoe's father.

He had been uncertain of his reception, afraid of the older man's reaction. And, he'd realized in hindsight, even more afraid of the possibility of forgiveness. He had carried the burden for so long... the memory of Tomoe falling, of his own helplessness, of days and nights in darkness and filth, reliving her death and all the others. Shadowed, incoherent child-memories of sickness and hunger, the reek of unwashed human as the villagers fell one by one to disease until he was the only one left, and every one of them with her face.

It had been easy to give in. A relief. And that was the deepest secret, the one he tried the hardest to forget, the one he was determined to carry into death with him. How much he'd _wanted_ , in the end, to surrender. To blame himself. It was easier that way.

Until Kaoru's voice had called his name, until her gentle hands had drawn him out and the web of easy lies had crumbled in the sunlight. His choice – his choice to trap himself, and his choice to be free. But she had reminded him of strength, given him a reason to be strong, and that was… everything.

 _Old age_ , Mr. Yukishiro had said, coughing dryly. He had been little more than a wizened head and bony hands under layers of thick blankets. _It comes to us all_.

He'd offered Kenshin a cup of tea and begged forgiveness before Kenshin could say even a word of the speech he'd so carefully prepared and practiced (as he'd had to, in those days, when even simple greetings were a struggle). _Forgive me_ , he'd said _. Forgive my family_. _Forgive my daughter_.

A strange thing, to seek forgiveness and find it begged of you. The world had tilted in that moment, never to quite right itself again. He remembered how Mr. Yukishiro's liver-spotted hands had clutched at the blankets as he bowed his head, the tea steaming from the mug he'd held in his gnarled fingers. There had been a spray of cherry blossoms printed on the side.

 _I'm sorry_ , Kenshin had managed to say, free words – words not dictated, words of _his own_ – still an uneasy thing in his throat. _I'm sorry for everything_.

"Done now!" Buntaro announced, drying his hands on the little strip of cloth left out for that purpose. Kenshin patted him on the head, anchoring himself in what was _now_.

"Let's go back and watch, okay?"

"Okay!"

Buntaro toddled out of the bathroom, moving as though he were near falling. He was undersized for his age and still walked by propelling himself blindly in the general direction of wherever he wanted to go. Kenshin kept an eye on him, lifting him quickly and without comment over the high step to the latrine. It wasn't his fault that he was so small, and had been so slow in growing. That didn't stop him from hating when anyone drew attention to it.

They still weren't sure if he was an orphan or not. Mr. Tanaka had found him wandering near the docks after the Second Battle of Edo, and the police hadn't been able to locate his parents. So Kaoru had taken him in with the rest. No family had ever materialized to take him in, and those who'd adopted the other orphaned and abandoned children in Kaoru's care had had little interest in an undersized, slow-learning child.

Not that it mattered. There would always be a place for him in Kaoru's home. As there would be for anyone she had taken in.

 _Except for me, it seems_ – no, that wasn't fair, he chided himself. Kaoru had kept her word. If she resented his presence – if he was, as she'd implied, the unwanted ghost come to lure her from a happy life – she had never said so outright. Had never tried to make him unwelcome, or treated him poorly.

She'd just been… distant. From him, and from everyone else, too.

 _She's selfish and horrible and cruel!_ Kaoru's voice echoed in his memory, torn with grief. _She destroys him because she doesn't have the strength to let go!_

Maybe she was right. Maybe he'd expected too much.

Maybe…

Buntaro tugged on his sleeve, shaking him from his dark reverie. Kenshin lowered his hand and let the little boy grab onto his fingers to lead him back to the competition hall, careful to keep a happy smile on his face. There was no need for the children to worry. That had already been through too much for their short lives.

How old had Tomoe's brother been when she died? Not much older than Buntaro.

Short lives, stained with blood and tragedy. It would be easy to lay it all at the slave-masters' feet, say it was whatever ancestor that first proposed the old way to the shōgun who was to blame for all the horror. And yet, no one had objected. Not seriously, not for more than a few generations. It had simply become the way of things – imperfect, but then what was perfect in this flawed world?

That had been the hardest thing to understand: that it wasn't _malice_ that had caused evil to take root. Just… apathy.

Kenshin started to sigh. Then came a prickling on the back of his neck; the hairs on his arms stood up, and a sense of being _watched_ overwhelmed him. He was always conscious of stares, of speculation, but this – this was something else. There was an impersonal hostility in this gaze, a gleeful anticipation of violence for its own sake.

"Buntaro," he said, leaning towards the child. "I forgot something. Do you remember the way to the tournament?"

The boy gave him an exasperated look. "Down the _hall_ ," he said, pointing with one chubby finger. The _duh_ was heavily implied.

"All right, all right." He removed his fingers from Buntaro's grasp. "You go back to the tournament and find Yahiko, okay? Tell him to come find me."

"'Kay." Buntaro toddled off, his back a little straighter and his stride a little stronger for having been entrusted with such a mission. Kenshin watched him go, keeping his breath deliberately slow and even. Control the breath, control the heart, control the pace of blood through his body. _Control_. He was responsible for what he did, and no one else. Such was the burden of liberty.

Then he turned towards the gaze, and waited. A heartbeat passed before a band of thugs detached themselves from the walls and corners they'd been lurking in, fanning out in a semicircle.

"You should have gone with the kid," one said. Perhaps the leader. His eyes were narrow and cold, unsmiling: his mouth was curved in the facsimile of a grin. An iron headband obscured his forehead, the character for _justice_ engraved in the center.

"Forgive me," Kenshin said absently, his heart rising in his throat. His hand fell to the hilt of his reversed sword. "This seemed most efficient."

Formality was invading his tongue, but he could still speak his own words. That mattered.

The man looked past him, nodding. Kenshin turned –

Everything went black.

~*~

The men were not professionals. This was evident in their movements – too obvious and threatening, making a point of declaring their existence – and in their dress. There were ways to dress for combat that did not reveal one's purpose, and they had used none of them.

They had at least managed to avoid having _too_ much of a uniform. Although the hats each carried or wore at their waist were something of a giveaway, if one was accustomed to looking for such things.

Enishi sauntered down the hall, looking neither right nor left, and dipped his hand into the breast pocket of his Western shirt. The man standing by the exit tensed, then relaxed as he drew out a pack of cigarettes. He didn't actually smoke, of course; they had other uses.

A few quick pats, a look of disgruntlement, and Enishi approached the thug. He was a tall, skinny fellow. Barely a muscle on him by the looks of it, but the proof of _that_ pudding was in the eating. Caution, always, until the variables were sufficiently resolved, and right now the equation was still mostly placeholders.

"Terribly sorry to be a bother," he said, twisting his voice light and self-deprecating, "but you wouldn't happen to have a match on you, would you?"

His answer should have been _no_. Instead he lowered his head, just for an instant, patting at his pockets –

In one quick movement, Enishi grabbed the back of the thug's head and slammed it into his knee. His nose broke with a soft, sick _pop_ like roasting chestnuts; before he could gather himself, Enishi had spun him around and wrapped his arm around the other man's neck, his forearm and biceps pressing against the carotid arteries. Just enough pressure to keep him limp, not enough to knock him out

"Who do you work for?" he asked softly. The thug struggled, trying to get enough leverage for a flip. Enishi pressed his hand to the back of the thug's head, cutting off air and blood until he was nearly choking, then relented.

"I ask again." Still soft, almost kind. Genial. It was more frightening than anger, he'd discovered, and seemed to get faster results. "Who do you work for? If you answer, I'll let you live."

The thug hesitated. Enishi kneed him in the lower back to help him make up his mind.

"Raijuta!" he gasped out, spittle running down the sides of his mouth as Enishi applied more pressure. "Isurugi… Raijuta…"

 _Raijuta_. Enishi knew the name, of course. A posturing fool, one of many, with a small coterie of equally ignorant followers railing against the tide of history. The most that they'd ever gotten up to was petty crime against the vulnerable, harassing impoverished freedmen and the struggling merchants who did business with them, that sort of thing. An annoyance – a bug to be squashed when and if he came across them – but not his true prey. So he'd let them be.

He had, however, come across them now.

"Thank you for your co-operation," he murmured, and choked the idiot out. He crumpled to the ground like a paper doll. Enishi stooped low over him, drawing his folded knife, and flicked it open. One less louse crawling on the surface of the world…

Then, for no reason he could name, he hesitated.

A pair of bright blue eyes gazed out from the back of his mind, steady and remote. The tip of the blade rested against the thug's artery, not breaking skin. Not yet.

His sister did not show her face. But then, she never did, not in moments like this. When he was the necessary evil, the vicious drug purging the body of infection…

 _The sword that protects life_. Black ink on white paper. Words in a dossier. Idealism, sweet as sugar and just as unhealthy for the path he'd chosen, the only path that would let him set things _right_ –

His lip curled.

He slit the thug's throat. There was no satisfaction in it.

Then he stood and headed back towards the main hall. Perhaps it was not too late to warn them.

~*~

There was comfort in the rhythm of the tournament, the steady back-and-forth of students clashing without the intent to kill. To conquer, yes: to overcome. But not to hurt. It made Kaoru glad.

There had been moments, of course. Freeborn students sulking over losing to freemen and begging their comrades to seek vengeance, or entering the ring intent on proving outdated ideology, but so far the judges had caught each one and seen the perpetrators penalized. So far, it was exactly what Master Maekawa had promised her it would be. Just a tournament, a chance to exhibit skill and honor. To show that there were no differences under the skin. None that mattered.

And there had been victories, too. Freeborn losing to freedmen and then begging to see the move that had defeated them with nothing but awe and an eagerness to learn shining in their faces. Freedmen defeating freeborn and then bowing in profound respect for their opponent's skill and a match hard-fought, and the two walking off as newfound friends to dissect their errors and compliment the others' skills.

Not perfect. But a start.

"Red penalty, shoving!" she called, seeing a strike land a little too hard and followed through with a push that was almost a shove. It was the second time this particular competitor had been unnecessarily aggressive in his follow-through. One more, and he'd yield a point.

His teacher gave her a dirty look from the nearby ring. _Eyes on your match_ , she thought, and chose not to say. It was hardly worth it. Although if his student lost, he may well protest – the man was arrogant enough – but that was a concern for a later date.

He'd probably protest anyway, given how many matches his students had lost already.

The other student – Naoki Akibara, she recalled, who had won every match he'd entered so far – rallied, sliding forward on a neat bit of footwork and feinting to the head, only to twist rapidly to the side when his opponent went to parry and tap him lightly on his armored abdomen.

"Stomach point!"

The scorekeeper noted it down. The aggressive student – Hiroshi, that was his name – scowled, redoubling his efforts. But Naoki had the measure of him now and danced fluidly out of the way, nearly scoring another point against Hiroshi's knuckles. Kaoru smiled, appreciating his grace –

_Comet trail of red hair whipping out behind him, men scattering like wheat in a hurricane as he whirled through them, her throat too sore with blossoming bruises to command him to stop –_

She forced the memory away in time to see Hiroshi aim a strike at Naoki's back, one that would have hit had Naoki been less agile. And, once again, he followed through with a shove. Kaoru stifled a sigh.

"Red penalty, unnecessary roughness. Forfeit one point."

"No _way!_ " Hiroshi snapped, turning to face her. "I challenge that ruling!"

Kaoru called a time out, nodding in assent, and gestured for the nearest senior referee. Who happened to be Master Maekawa. He sauntered over, his hands clasped behind his back, and listened carefully as Kaoru and the scorekeeper explained. The two competitors stayed silent, as was only right and proper.

"The ruling is valid," he said at last. "Mr. Hiroshi, restrain your enthusiasm."

Hiroshi's face reddened, and he looked as though he desperately wanted to say something but didn't dare. Kaoru sighed inwardly. They would definitely be hearing from his teacher by the end of the tournament –

There was a boom from the end of the hall. Kaoru jumped – _cannons roaring from the hill, muskets blaring high-pitched counterpoints to the screaming melee_ – and reached in a panic for a sword that wasn't there. Where was her _sword_ –

She caught herself, forcing her breath to evenness. The main doors to the hall had slammed shut; a man the size of a mountain stood before them, flanked by four other men. All wore flat straw hats bearing characters for – she squinted, trying to make them out – something about glory and the past. A slogan of some sort.

Master Maekawa raised an eyebrow.

"May I help you?" he asked, pitching his voice to carry over the confused murmuring of audience and students. All eyes came to rest on him, a wary sense of waiting settling over the crowd. No one was panicking, not yet, but all knew that something was happening. The matches had stopped without anyone calling time, competitors and referees uncertain what would happen next.

The man smirked.

"I am Raijuta Isurugi," he said, his eyes glowing with strange fervor. "And I have come to enter your tournament."

"I apologize for the inconvenience, but registration has closed." Master Maekawa turned away, deliberately dismissing the interloper. "If you wish to register for an upcoming tournament, please speak with the senior student at the other end of the hall."

"I will do no such thing." Raijuta snorted, crossing his arms. "This tournament is open to all, is it not? Even casteless half-breeds and slaves."

Kaoru suppressed a snarl, sticking her hand out without thinking to stop Hiroshi in his tracks before he rushed the man, like an idiot. The crossed scar on his cheek stood out white with rage, and he trembled at her touch.

"This tournament is open to all citizens of the Empire of Japan, and to any interested foreigners with proper sponsorship," Maekawa corrected coolly. "You are creating a disruption. Please remove yourself."

Raijuta smirked. Kaoru tensed, looking instinctively for her students. They had paused where they were, just as everyone in the hall had, eyes riveted on the confrontation. The strange challenger's agenda was blatant, and the outcome… would be important.

"No."

"Very well." Maekawa sighed, gesturing to his assistant. The young man gulped and bowed, darting off to fetch a pair of bamboo practice swords from the sidelines. "Though I do not deserve the honor, I am the senior master here. Will this humble person serve as a satisfactory opponent?"

Kaoru nearly laughed at the sarcastic courtesy. She felt Hiroshi relax. The mockery had cleared the air; she saw students and teachers beginning to move, adjusting themselves to watch with an air of anticipation. Naoki moved softly to stand at his Hiroshi's side and she risked a glance. He was standing loose, easy but ready, and with the air of one preparing to back up a friend. Their dojos were on the same street, she recalled: they had a long history of rivalry, both friendly and not.

"If I must." Raijuta snorted as he accepted the practice sword, eyeing it like it was a dead rat. "Do you insist on these children's toys?"

"This is a tournament, not a deathmatch," Maekawa said mildly, rolling his shoulders. "Your pardon, Master Kamiya, Mr. Hiroshi, Mr. Naoki, but may I borrow this ring?"

"Of course." They bowed and stepped back, allowingMaekawa to take up his position. The back of Kaoru's neck prickled, awareness tingling up her spine. She searched the crowd for Yahiko and saw him making his way towards her. Her sword was in his hands.

Raijuta stalked towards the ring, sneering, and made sure that his every step landed with a noticeable thud. Emphasizing his size and power, no doubt. Kaoru resisted the urge to dismiss him. For all his clear pretensions and apparent foolishness, there was an important point to be made here. Too many people would take it as a sign if Master Maekawa lost this match, and it would mar the message of the free tournament.

Master Maekawa stood ready and at ease in the center of the ring. Kaoru stepped forward.

"Please allow this unworthy Kaoru Kamiya to referee the match."

"I would be honored, Master Kamiya." He sketched a bow in her direction. Raijuta shrugged.

"It matters not who judges the match. The results will be plain for anyone to see."

"So you say," Master Maekawa countered. "Let us begin."

"Positions!" Kaoru snapped out, raising her hand. "Three stroke match, first round. Begin!"

Raijuta exploded into movement. Maekawa dodged, but not well enough; the bamboo sword whipped down against his should with a sick, audible _crack_ , driving Maekawa down on one knee. Kaoru sucked in a sharp breath in time with the gasping crowd. It was fractured at the very least, probably broken –

She gritted her teeth.

"Would you like to forfeit?" she asked her father's old friend. Maekawa gritted his teeth and nearly snarled.

"No." he gasped out. "The match continues." He glanced over at Kaoru and risked a small, reassuring smile. "I have his measure now."

He was lying. Kaoru _knew_ it, a cold certainty in her bones. She was no child anymore to be soothed by kindly falsehoods.

But Maekawa was a swordsman, a master. Not a student. And he had made his choice, although he hardly had another. He couldn't afford to yield, not in this match which was not merely a match. Not when the whole city was waiting for the free tournament to fail. He _would_ lose – but he would lose with honor, and courage, and in a way that made it clear that Raijuta was a brute. Hardly ideal, but still something they could use.

Kaoru closed her eyes, trying not to see how his arm hung at his side. It was possible that blow had just ended his career.

"Second round!" she called, raising her hand. Raijuta and Maekawa eyed each other across the ring. Maekawa braced himself. His eyes dropped to Raijuta's feet, watching for movement.

Raijuta lunged. Maekawa didn't bother dodging; he brought his sword up, crippled arm and all, and barely managed to parry the blow. It slid off his weapon, grounding itself in the floor and Maekawa stepped in, intending to make a body-blow. Raijuta side-stepped it, snorting in distaste. Maekawa lurched forward, pulled off-balance by his wounded arm and unable to stop his own momementum. He ducked, trying to avoid the inevitable back-blow –

No use. Raijuta slammed his blade across Maekawa's shoulders. The old teacher crumpled to the ground and lay still.

The crowd fell horribly silent.

"Second point," Kaoru heard herself say. "The match is ended."

"And _that_ for your false equality," Raijuta said, tossing the bamboo sword aside as if it was a used-up dishrag. "An idea as weak and feeble as this old man. As I have just proved."

"You've proved _nothing_."

It took Kaoru a moment to realize that _she_ was the one who'd spoken. Her heart pounded with rage, her blood throbbing like drumbeats in her ears, roaring like the sea in storm as she raised an arm in accusation. She remembered Kenshin's teacher, vaguely – another mountain of a man – but she had faced him down knowing that his heart was kind, and this – this _monster_ –

"All you've proven," she snarled, "is that you are a _bully_." Her finger thrust down to the ground in emphasis. "A great, cruel, ignorant _bully_ who can only make his point by threatening _children_ and hurting old men! You have disgraced yourself, your teacher, and your school by your actions here today, and I demand satisfaction of you!"

An audible gasp from the crowd. Kaoru snapped her mouth shut, shocked by what she'd said, by the words carried righteous on her tongue. Maekawa lay on the floor between them, still dazed; the students in the tournament – scarred and bare-faced – watched, and Kaoru knew she had made a mistake. Upped the stakes. Now she _had_ to fight him.

Now she had to _win_.

Then suddenly Yahiko was at her side, her wooden sword – the one he had given her all those years and miles ago – in his hands. He held it out to her, wordless.

She took it.

"Isurugi Raijuta. I am Kaoru Kamiya of the Kamiya Kasshin style, and I challenge you." Her heart beat wild against her ribcage, her lips dry as stone. She resisted the urge to lick them.

A thin smirk played across his lips.

"I accept."


	5. there's a ghost in my mouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still being updated. It will be finished. Just... at my own pace.

 Kenshin woke in darkness and swallowed panic.

It was dark. Dark and close and smelling vaguely of cleaning supplies and he clung to that, because that was the thing that wasn't right – the thing that meant that while it was dark it wasn't  _the dark_ , the deep black maw that yawned open in the stone, that swallowed men whole and spat out ghosts.

He fell forward on his hands nonetheless, his muscles remembering, his hindbrain screaming. Stay kneeling this long enough, and they'll open the door. Stay like this and that means you've been good and they'll open the door and there will be light and water and rice –

His throat was  _not_  dry. He was  _not_  thirsty. He'd eaten a solid breakfast at – at – he couldn't remember – it was bright and warm and spinning away, shattering. A dream. A  _memory_ , he told himself, a real thing.  _Real_.

So hard to hold on to, here in the darkness.

It smelled of cleaning supplies, not filth.  _Cleaning supplies_. That was the wrong thing and he needed to hold on to that, remember that the brightness, the warmth was not a dream, the children laughing, these were  _real things_. The darkness was the dream.

Slowly, long-dormant instincts screaming into wakeful terror, he got to his feet and fumbled along the wall. His eyes were already adjusting. There was light, thin as cobwebs, and it was yellow and cheerful, not the smoky red of the braziers that sent the nightmare-smoke – the  _drug_ , he told himself sternly,  _Kanryu's_  drug, because he knew the proper words and he  _must_  use them – wafting towards the breaking-cells.

That was all the darkness was. Not a monster. A man, a technique, evil beyond description but not a demon. Human hands and human horror. And he had faced that man and overcome, had heard his name from that man's lips and chosen to spare his life – because  _he_  did not wish to kill again, and not because that man deserved it. That was a free choice. He was free. He was himself.

 _Remember_ , he chanted silently, his lips moving in the dark.  _Remember, remember, remember_.

His head was starting to throb. Deep breaths, in and out, steady as the sea while he groped for the door. Found it –  _not_  the cell door, because he could dig his fingers into the edge, could slide it open. It had  _meant_  to be opened from both sides. It was not a prison.

It didn't open.

He tried again, his fingers numbing as panic welled up from the dark places behind his eyes. Failed. Clumsy fingers, heavy as lead and just as useless, just as helpless and it had been his fault, his fault. He deserved –

No, no,  _no_. Lies. Lies from the darkness and the nightmare smoke.

Those were the wrong words.

What were the real ones?

He knew them, but couldn't grasp their shape. They whirled away as he tried again and again to open the door, growing less able each pass until he could try no longer and sank to his knees, shaking.

Of course. He'd forgotten.

There was never a way to open the door. He'd forgotten that and been sent back to the darkness. Because he had disobeyed. This was the way of things. The right way.

Slowly, in increments, he relaxed.

If he stayed like this long enough, they'd come and let him out. When he'd learned. When he'd proven that he was good.

They always let him out again, if he followed the rules.

~*~

Kaoru stepped forward into the ring, her sword held loose and confident in her right hand. Yahiko settled his breathing and watched. He knew – though he hoped that her opponent did not – that more than concentration creased her brow. Fear was there, also: she frowned when she was uncertain, and always gripped her sword-hilt a little too tightly. She was doing it now, her fingers straining with the effort not to clench down and render her grip entirely useless.

 _Relax_ , he tried to think at her.  _Relax, relax, relax…_

Pointless. She could take care of herself – she knew how to compensate for her habits, he  _knew_  that, but he also saw the size of her opponent and the mad-dog glint in his eyes and knew that she would need to be at her best for him. But she knew it, too – she had to – and she was doing everything she could, he  _knew_  she was. Because she was the teacher, and he the student, and he had to trust her. Had to believe. Had to  _know_  that she would win, or else…

So he held his tongue and watched, his arms crossed over his chest to hide his shaking hands.

"Who will be the judge?" Kaoru asked coolly. Raijuta snorted, rolling back his shoulders.

"We won't need one. One stroke match. Prepare yourself!"

Yahiko bristled at the insult. But it didn't seem to worry Kaoru, so he only dug his heels into the matting to keep himself steady as she fell back on one foot, raising her sword in the traditional opening of their style. The Kamiya Kasshin preferred a neutral stance, trading focus for flexibility; she might not have the pure strength in defense or offense that another style would, but that was where the speed came in – she could react whatever way seemed best without restriction, and slide easily into stronger stances once she'd settled on a strategy. Provided that she was quick enough.

Raijuta leaned back on his rear heel, cranking down like a spring as Kaoru watched too-calmly. And then –

"Head!" he barked, lunging forward like an avalanche. His arm came down, striking at Kaoru's head hard enough to break her skull –

And missed. Kaoru slid back two full steps, barely evading the blow. It passed half an inch from the tip of her nose and she didn't stop there, moving again in anticipation of a swift follow-through. Raijuta launched himself at her and she dodged to one side, once more barely evading the blow. Again. Then again.

"Don't mock me, woman!" Raijuta snarled. "Fight!"

"I  _am_  fighting," Kaoru retorted, adjusting her grip. "It's not my fault that you can't hit me."

Raijuta bellowed rage and hurled himself at her again. Yahiko cursed silently and grabbed at the two kids watching, snagging their collars before they could rush the ring. Thank god everyone else was too far away to try anything stupid –

He risked a glance behind him, just in case. No. The crowd was standing stock-still, wide-eyed and watchful. He couldn't see Soujiro… he'd probably gone for help.

Kaoru dodged. Yahiko  _saw_  her dodge – and then –

The blow came down anyway, came down and  _hit_  her – !

No, he realized as she danced away. Her sword. She'd blocked it, somehow – there was a chip in the wood that went straight to its metal core, and the matting that had been below her feet was…

Torn. As though some terrible force had ripped it to shreds.

Yahiko's heart lurched in his chest.  _Get out of there!_  he wanted to scream – too late, as the blow came down again and there was no way she could dodge this time, so soon after the next one, not without a price –

Raijuta howled. It took Yahiko a moment to realize that it was in pain, not triumph. The big man clutched at his hand, his wooden sword falling to the floor, and snarled fury at somewhere beyond the ring.

Yahiko followed his gaze. There was a man standing there, a man which a short shock of white hair, dressed in Western clothing though he himself was Japanese. An elegant coat hung from his shoulders. Small, smoky-lensed glasses concealed his eyes. He pushed them up the bridge of his nose with one gloved hand, smirking.

In the other was a revolver, still smoking from that shot it had fired.

"Damn," the man said, his voice carrying in the stillness. "Still pulls to the left. Sorry," he added. "I was aiming for your head."

"This is a duel, Mr. Yukishiro," Kaoru snapped. "You have no right to interfere."

"And I apologize for cutting things short." He sketched a bow towards Kaoru even as he kept the revolver trained on Raijuta, a strange profundity in the motion. "If it had been a truly fair fight, I would never have interfered. But it occurred to me, watching, that you might not know exactly who you're up against. Master Kamiya, may I introduce Isurugi Raijuta, a former street thug of little merit who currently heads a middling-sized organization of losers calling themselves the Children of Truth. Quite the name for a bunch of petty mischief-makers whose greatest achievements to date are harassing honest shopkeepers for doing business with former slaves."

Raijuta made as if to step towards him. Yukishiro cocked the revolver.

"Careful," he said, smiling too pleasantly. "Wouldn't want any accidents, would we?"

 _Yukishiro_. Yahiko frowned, trying to remember. The name was familiar…

"Which leads me to wonder," Yukishiro continued, the barrel of his gun still trained on Raijuta, "what on earth possessed a small-time bigot like you to try something this… grand? There must be a trick," he added. "Would you like to reveal it now? Or will you withdraw peacefully before the authorities arrive?"

"You're bluffing," Raijuta sneered, stepping forward. "You didn't have time to call them."

"Didn't I?" Yukishiro's smile hardened into a smirk. "How do you know I haven't had them waiting this entire time? Did you really think that your activities had gone unnoticed?"

Raijuts, who had been taking another step forward, hesitated. He and Yukishiro stared at each for a long time, long enough that Yahiko had to let out the breath that he hadn't know he'd been holding.

Then, suddenly, Raijuta snorted.

"Very well. Men!" he cried, turning deliberately away. "Our point is made. We do not serve the cause by lingering here."

His men looked at each other in obvious confusion, but left their posts and followed him, draining obediently from the hall like pus from a wound and taking the tension with them. A beat followed; then the crowd erupted into furious conversation, children rushing to their parents, adult chattering, teenagers boasting emptily to cover their terror.

And Yukishiro holstered his gun, walking over to Kaoru's side. He reached her before Yahiko did, taking her sword-arm gently by the elbow and examining her wrist.

"It's not deep," Yahiko heard him say as he drew nearer. "You should be fine, but you should at least have it disinfected, just to be sure."

Yahiko hadn't even realized she'd been injured. He stepped up, clearing his throat, and the two of them looked at him with odd, guilty expressions. Now that he had their attention, he found that there was nothing on his tongue.

"Where's Kenshin?" he said finally, knowing it for a weak sally. "And who was that guy?"

"Isurugi Raijuta," said Yukishiro, dropping Kaoru's wrist as though he'd just realized he was still holding it. "A small-time bigot, as I said. Leads a gang that claims to be working towards the restoration of the old, true ways – hence, Children of Truth – but they're largely ineffective. Someone must have put him up to this."

"And who are you?" Yahiko moved, without quite knowing why, to stand close to Kaoru's side. She was inspecting her sword and said nothing. He pretended not to notice her rubbing slowly at her wrist where Yukishiro had touched it.

"Enishi Yukishiro," the man said with a bow. "Ms. Kamiya invited me to attend the tournament."

"Oh." Yahiko crossed his arms to stop his fingers fidgeting. "All right. But where  _is_  Kenshin?" he asked, looking around. "He should have been here."

"I don't know," Kaoru said, sticking her sword in her belt. "I was busy. Ask the children?"

"Teacher! Teacher!" Ayame skidded up to them, panting. "Buntaro came back alone, Uncle Kenshin took him to the washroom and Buntaro says – he says – " she took a deep breath. "He says that Uncle Kenshin stopped to talk to some men and told him to go back to the seats, and I went looking but he's not where Buntaro said he was. Have you seen him?"

 _Shit_. Yahiko and Kaoru exchanged glances, old instincts rising to the surface and he had to take a moment to remember that Kenshin was a grown man. It was hard, for a moment: Raijuta had woken up so many old memories.

"We should look for him." Kaoru said, finally. "He's probably fine, but… with what just happened…"

"Yeah. I'll do a headcount on the kids, you start looking for Kenshin."

Kaoru paused a moment.

"All right. Ayame, where did Buntaro say Kenshin left him?"

"This way!"

Ayame ran off. Kaoru followed, and Yahiko noticed – as he went to round up their students – that Yukishiro followed close behind.

~*~

Kaoru stood in the hall where Buntaro had last seen Kenshin, trying to think. There was no trace of struggle, no sign of a fight, and if Kenshin had fought then there would be something to mark it – broken floorboards, shattered doors,  _something_. So he must have gone willingly… but  _why?_ And where?

Was it possible that he'd been taken by surprise?

"I doubt they kidnapped him," Enishi said from somewhere over his shoulder, echoing her thoughts. "He isn't important enough."

She turned. Enishi was loitering against the wall, studying the hallway as she was, his gaze downcast and inward.

"He's not a  _thing_ ," she snapped, her gut churning. The air had cracked like a whip when Raijuta brought his sword down, and she had tasted death. Not for the first time – there had been moments during the war, especially in the Second Battle of Edo – but it had been so long that she had forgotten the bitter taste of it, the heavy way it sat, like rusty metal on her tongue. "Don't talk about him like he is."

Enishi blinked, and for a moment seemed inclined to argue; then something shifted in his face, not quite softening it.

"Of course. My apologies."

"If they didn't kidnap him, where  _is_  he?" She ran a hand through her hair, grateful that the dampness was sweat and not blood. It had been too near a thing. "They can't have gotten him by surprise…"

"Can't they?" Enishi asked, detached himself from the wall and sauntering over. "Anyone can be caught off-guard, in my experience, if you know what you're doing – but you're neglecting the obvious, I think. What if nothing happened? Could he have just left the hall?"

Kaoru hesitated.

"I don't  _think_  so…"

She wanted to say  _of course not_ , that Kenshin would never leave before the tournament was over, especially not under threat. But she couldn't be sure. If they had tricked him…

For the first time, she resented Buntaro's slowness. He'd been unable to tell them anything except that Kenshin had stopped to talk to a lot of big men, and told him to go on ahead.

"We don't know for a fact that the men he stopped to speak with were Raijuta's," Enishi pointed out.

"Now who's overcomplicating things?" she shot back. "Why would there be  _two_  groups involved?"

"Because Raijuta's Children of Truth are too small and frankly, too incompetent to have pulled this off without help. It's likely that there's a second person or persons involved, and this was a smokescreen. Unless I'm missing information, which is always a possibility." He seemed to sigh, in weariness rather than exasperation. "I'm looking at a couple of late nights, I think."

"None of that helps us figure out where Kenshin is," Kaoru said firmly, swallowing irritation at Yukishiro's flippancy. Snapping at him wouldn't find Kenshin. "There's no sign of a fight, so either he was taken by surprise or he went willingly. Either way, he could be anywhere."

"Let's assume, for the moment, that he's still on the grounds." Enishi took off his glasses, wiping idly at the smoky lenses with a cloth plucked from his breast pocket. "They would have wanted him out of the way and unable to interfere. Which means that he's likely locked up somewhere. I'd start with storage closets – they're small, easily overlooked, and generally fairly simple to keep shut. And they wouldn't have wanted to go far and miss the action in the main hall, so we should start here and move outwards. I'll take that end," he nodded towards the washrooms, "you take the other. Yes?"

Kaoru eyed him, uncertainty bubbling up through her lingering fear and the rush of combat.

"Why are you being so helpful?"

He flashed her a grin.

"Because I want answers, of course. Either Raijuta's bully-boys are a greater threat than we anticipated, or someone is puppeting them along for some purpose. And I doubt it's a beneficial one. Too much was lost in making this new world."

His voice was suddenly grim, and his eyes cold as ice. It was reassuring, oddly enough – more real, somehow, than his genial smiles. Like plunging through quicksand and suddenly reaching solid ground.

"I will not have those sacrifices go to waste."

She frowned, studying his face, and could see no lie.

"Fine," she said. "Let's hurry."

~*~

There were no memories in the darkness. The thing that huddled in the corner was not permitted them. Memories were for men, not weapons; for masters, not slaves.

The thing was disobedient. It knew that it was not permitted memory, and knowing was disobedience because how could it be forbidden something that it did not have, it  _did not have_. It did not have memories. It did not. It did not.

Yet it did. And there in the darkness, it remembered. Could not help remembering. Soon they would come and they would see the memories behind his eyes and take them, and it would better to let them go no but it could not, would not –

 _It's all right_ , it heard someone say in the back of what could not be its mind because it did not have a mind, only ears that heeded and hands that obeyed.  _It's all right. Hold on. Don't let go._

He remembered. He remembered, and he did not let go.

He remembered that there had been sunlight and clean water, a scent of jasmine and sweat. He remembered clear blue eyes and a sad smile, bright silks and the strong edge of a carved wooden sword. He remembered small hands working next to his as savory-sweet steam rose from rice simmering over the stove. He had looked at the hands because that was what was permitted: they were scabbed and calloused and confident as they diced, onions and cabbage and squash turning into flavorful white chunks and crumpled greeny strips and long, proud columns of pale orange.

There had been a sense of  _tallness_ , and he'd never known how tall because he'd never looked up, because such things were not permitted. Tallness, loudness, brash rage igniting into explosive fury and somehow he had never been afraid; the anger had passed around him, over him. Sheltered him and the small hands, and the clear blue eyes with their sad, sad smile.

The smell of medicine, sharp and bitter, and firm hands that never passed into cruelty. He had recognized those hands, known their touch and stilled under it as he was meant to, knowing that afterwards the darkness would come – only it hadn't. Never again. Never ever again.

Instead there had been sunlight filtering soft and warm through rice paper, wooden floors rubbed brighter than sunlight on water and smooth as glass from generations of feet running, stepping, sliding in cotton socks across the polished boards. Rich earth, cool and grainy between his fingers, the stringy heartbeat of flower-roots before they were tucked away into their beds. Tatami mats smelling sweet and dusty, ridged under feet and hands. Little mountains.

He remembered these things.

 _He_.

Remembered.  _Remembered_. Remembered something that was not blood in the snow, was not black hair falling, falling in a cascade from jeweled pins and white silk ribbons. That was real but it was not the only real thing. There were others. There were others. There were others.

There had been darkness and mud and pain and the slow creep of the long cold and then a crack of flesh-on-wood and it had paid attention because it couldn't not and then.

Blue, blue eyes over him, blue as something it had forgotten long ago. Blue and bright with rage and tears and –

_Kenshin!_ _ Kenshin _ _, do you understand?_

– Kenshin. Kenshin, Kenshin, Kenshin the eyes had called him  _Kenshin_  the small hands had called him  _Kenshin_  the anger had called him  _Kenshin_  the bittersweet medicine called him  _Kenshin_  his name was  _Kenshin_  and  _that was not a lie!_

Kenshin surfaced, gasping. For a long moment he stayed exactly where he was, shaking, his arms clasped in a death grip around his knees.

Kaoru. Yahiko. Sano. Megumi. They had names and so did he, and he was  _he_ , not it, and that was true.

Slowly, he unfurled himself and clambered to his feet, fighting the sense of wrongness. Every limb was weighted with warning –  _musn't, don't dare, not told to rise_  – but they were fragile, echoing things and he was stronger than them. So he stood, and kept his breathing even.

It had been a long time since he'd lost himself like that. Years, he thought – not since his earliest days at the freedman's camp. Then again, he'd avoided anything that might bring the past back too strongly, sleeping with the door open and a candle burning always, carefully making sure there was air circulating in whatever room he was in. That there was always a clear exit, and he always knew where it was.

He worked outside, most days, on laundry and the garden, or in the kitchen where he knew he was safe. It had always been safe there.

His heart pounding hard but even behind his ribs, Kenshin pressed his hands up against the edge of the door and felt – calmly, with certainty, keeping his breath steady in his lungs – for leverage. Some angle to force the door open with.

There wasn't enough.

Panic curdled in his gut and this time he forced it down. It was weak, exhausted from its long fit, and gave way with a token protest. So he remembered – as he had not before, when he was drowning – that he had a  _sword_. For leverage. And better yet,  _legs_. For kicking. And the door was made of thin wood, not metal.

Kenshin made the very deliberate decision to smack his forehead in frustration. Because it was  _silly_. A grown man panicking over being locked in a closet, forgetting that he was perfectly capable of forcing his way out. It was  _ridiculous_. Even taking into account what had been done – Kanryu's foul medicine and the fetid squalor of the breaking-cells – there was a certain black humour to it.

A grown man, terrified of the dark. For  _pity's_  sake.

Annoyance was better than fear. More bubbly, less like an anchor in his belly. He embraced it, huffing irritably at himself in the darkness and nearly jumping out of his skin at the sound of his own voice. A chuckle welled in his throat, half-hysterical, and he shook his head as he laughed.

Then he set to the business of breaking down the door.

~*~

Kaoru kept the fear low in her belly, locking it away as it sought to rise and catch her lungs, choke her with helplessness and bitter root. Kenshin was in danger, and she had to help. There was no choice involved – he was her responsibility. He always had been, from that very first moment when she'd knelt in the mud and carried him home, when she'd looked him in the eye and called him by name, forced him to acknowledge his name…

When he'd looked up at her with eyes like a frightened horse, all rolling whites and pinpoint pupils, and called her  _mistress_.

Her mistake. Her decisions. Her responsibility. She was Kaoru Kamiya, a master of the sword, and she would not shirk her duties. If they had taken Kenshin and locked him away, in the darkness, in a small room with no light or free air…

She remembered the cell. How could she ever forget? That small room, barely an alcove, stinking of blood and shit and piss. The scratches on the wall, the nails embedded there in the crumbling brick. The door gaping open, a formless maw of some mindless, consuming ogre, shimmering like a living thing, like the stone itself was breathing in the dim, flickering torchlight, breathing out the acrid sting of the drug into the fetid air of the bunker. Of the breaking-cells…

Kenshin always slept with a candle lit and the door propped open. On warm nights, he opened it on to the porch; on cool nights, to the inner hall.

She knew why, and never mentioned it. She just made sure that there were always enough candles.

Mouths, maws, gaping open to swallow her. She still dreamed of that dark, dead mansion, of the brick-built wings like grasping arms, the stairs and porches digging claws into the earth, twisting its skin and gnawing on its bones. A thousand shuttered eyes smirking down at her, promising her a long eternity in its shadow.

She had gone there willingly. Taken Kenshin as hers willingly. She had been  _willing_  – she had chosen, every step of the way and it didn't matter that the alternatives had been unthinkable because they had existed and she had  _chosen_  not to take them.

She had chosen.

The storm inside her did not show in her actions. The long years had taught her that much, at least: she was no little girl any longer, to cry and scream and rage and clench her fists, stamping her feet against the stone. She moved through the hall quickly and methodically, opening every door she found – they wouldn't need to lock him in, after all, not if it was dark and small enough. He would keep himself there, bound by the same thing that locked her into wakefulness night after night after night…

Her fault.

She should never have let him come back. Should never have taken him on in the first place, should have listened when Megumi told her to let him go that first time, so many years ago, in the past which is another country. Should have let him go and forgotten before the darkness of the cells and the stink of mud and broken flesh engraved itself inside her, sank into her bones.

And now – now she didn't know if she could be whole without it.

That was the sickness, the secret she kept locked tight below her heart. Who would she be without that pain, without the memory of the cells and the stench and Kanryu's mocking smile? Without the days, months,  _years_  of bloody bandages and refugees with hollow eyes? The sterile clinic packed with the wounded, the dead and the dying as cannon thundered just close enough that they could never sleep, not really. Children sobbing on streetcorners, beggars with empty bowls and faces that were already skulls.

The transition had not been a peaceful one. After the shock had worn off… every night there was some new disturbance. A riot, a beating, murders and mutilations with the bodies left to lie in the street as warning and revenge.  _How dare you_ , both sides had screamed, writing outrage in innocent blood for stolen lives and change forced down their unwilling throats.

Change. Yes. The city had revolted, forcing change upon itself and choking on the taste.

There had been no other way. She  _knew_  that. No other way, no other possible way; the rotting limb called for no remedy but amputation, the weeds had to be torn up by the root and burned but gods, gods, the blood and pus streaming from that punctured sore had drowned so many…

So many were drowning still.

 _And_ _that_ _for your false equality!_  His face had twisted like a demon-mask in a play, eyes bright with triumph as Master Maekawa lay crumpled at his feet, still and silent as a corpse.

He wasn't the only one, Kaoru knew. The undercurrent remained, bitter whispers and banked rage waiting for its moment to roar to life. Nothing seemed to quell it – nothing could, except a return to the old ways, a return that would never come.

And there were other voices, as well. Who said that it was not enough that the masters were cast down, not enough that the worst of them were dead, their empires shattered, their heirs left destitute. Not enough, could never be enough and the thing that frightened her most of all was that she agreed with them.

The fire should have raged longer, some guilty part of her whispered in the dark night, when the world slept and the moon's eye watched unblinking and without judgement. It should have consumed them all.

Even her.

She kept looking, and let the snake-nest in her belly writhe to its heart's content.

~*~

Enishi's mind wandered as he searched; the physical motions were reflexive enough that he didn't need to put much thought into them. There were only so many places they could have hidden a grown man, even if he was physically stunted. Or perhaps only naturally small…

He wondered, idly, what his sister had seen in him. If she had seen anything at all. Himura was mentioned in her diaries only in passing – the son of a friend of her father-in-law, young and passionate and no real part of her life. Her fiancée had occupied far more of her thoughts: she had written pages of his virtues, and pages more of worry when he fell ill.

And that single, final entry…

_I know what mother-in-law and father-in-law did. I have to stop them. Please, whoever reads this, accept it as my dying testimony: the Kiyosato's have committed an unpardonable offense against the son of a samurai. I go now to pay the price for their infamy, and redeem my beloved's honor._

_Son of a samurai_. Ha. He had believed his sister's testimony when he'd first read it, not knowing any better; now he knew that Himura was no such thing. Adopted, yes, apprenticed to a man who was once of the appropriate caste (although Enishi couldn't be sure; the fellow had done an excellent job of hiding his past) but of no proper blood himself.

He'd hated that, for a little while. That Tomoe had sacrificed herself for a no-one, a nothing, someone whose life held no meaning.

If he was honest – and he rarely was – he would admit that he hated it still. A shallow, reflexive hate, like the lingering ache the day after a fight. The real fury had burned itself out years ago, smothered in shadow and stone.

Himura clearly didn't remember. He hadn't recognized him that day after all – no real surprise, Enishi supposed, given that he hadn't washed the dye out of his hair for days afterwards. There had been no time.

It had been his first truly important mission: to infiltrate one of the last of Kanryu's facilities and pave the way for the liberators. Learn the exits, the weak points; guard numbers and rotations, locations of weapons lockers. Information first, and sabotage if possible.

He hadn't known about the final set of orders. Hadn't thought to look. And technically speaking, it wasn't his responsibility. He was the most junior operative, after all. He had no reason to grieve.

But every time that he thought those things, his sister looked at him gravely and he knew them for a lie.

He had joined the rebels for hate's sake, because Kanryu had stolen his sister, had destroyed everything that he loved. Everything about the world that was worth preserving was gone, so why not tear it down? Why not let it all burn – why not feed the flames, and make all creation into his sister's pyre?

Hate had driven him, kept him alive and fighting. Hate and the promise of revenge.

After that mission, it was… something else. Hate still fueled him, he  _knew_  that; it was hate that the fire consumed, that nurtured it and built it up to new heights of strength. But…

There had been children. Boys and girls, barely younger than himself. A woman with long black hair and a serene face had died cradling as many as her arms could hold to her breast, and Enishi had stopped for a long moment with the breath snatched from his lungs.

He wondered if she had convinced them to drink the poison calmly or if the guards had had to force it down their throats, and she had cradled them in the aftermath. Idle curiosity, morbid, stunned into cold analysis by the sheer breadth of what had happened. That day lived in his memory as little more than pockets of sensation. Cold mud, cold wind. The reek of blood and shit and piss: the poison had caused the slaves to void their bowels. The young woman's body, rigid in death, bent around her armful of children with their faces frozen forever in terror and pain.

And red hair, red as fresh-spilled blood. A man perhaps a decade older than himself speaking quietly to the slaves pulled from the breaking-cells, slaves who did not answer him but only stared, mute and dying, at the slate-grey sky. Tears were streaming down his face, though he seemed not to notice it at all.

Enishi had recognized him, and turned away. It wasn't time, not yet. This wasn't the place to confront him, to take his long-overdue vengeance. Because it was Himura's fault as much as Kanryu's, it  _had_  to be. His fault. Tomoe had gone to protect  _him_ …

But the old mantra – so comforting and familiar, so easy on his voiceless lips – had felt like a suit that no longer fit. A few days later, he'd asked his handler a question. A few more days after that, he'd received a response.

Hating Himura had felt… pointless, after that. Not wrong, precisely, just without merit. He had wanted to put Himura through hell, but it seemed that Kanryu had gotten there first.

One more reason to hate the bastard, really.

…Where the hell  _had_  they stashed Himura? He was running out of closets, and there was still no sign of the man. Had they actually kidnapped him? Who could  _that_  possibly benefit? Himura's political use had always been limited, and now that the war was over it was almost nonexistent, particularly since Himura hadn't tried to keep himself relevant…

Only one closet left in this hall. It was the last one within any kind of reasonable distance from where Himura had last been seen – if he wasn't here, the possibility that he'd been kidnapped went up sharply –

The door was bulging outwards. About two seconds and a cloud of dust later, it lay on the floor in two pieces. Himura stood over it, sheathing his sword. He saw Enishi; for a moment his eyes widened, then shuttered themselves into mild and thoughtless courtesy

"Hello," he said blandly. "Where is Kaoru?"

"Down the other hall." Enishi jerked his thumb over his shoulder, matching Himura's blandness. If that was how the man wanted to play it... "Looking for you."

"There are some very rough men about," Himura commented, still perfectly composed. Eerily so. There was a deadness in his eyes, a carefulness – he placed his words like a man picking his way over rough ground, knowing that one wrong step would send him skidding down the mountain in a sea of crushing stone. "I hope they don't cause a disruption."

"They already did."

"Oh." A shadow of worry – guilt? – crossed his face, just for a moment. And terror below it – a reflexive, animal terror, and Enishi thought briefly of a dog that knew it had disobeyed. "Was anyone hurt?"

"An older gentleman who I'm not familiar with, and Kaoru took a hit to the wrist. She should be fine."

Enishi felt the vague urge to laugh. The whole thing was surreal – standing in the hall amidst shards of door, calmly discussing events with a man he'd hated and pitied in equal measure for so many years. And the man himself… he'd had his heart on his sleeve only an hour or so ago, and now he was as perfectly, icily blank as some of the best agents Enishi had ever seen. Both couldn't be natural: one of those faces had to be a lie. Only question was, which one? And what could it mean?

This was what he got for taking an interest.

Himura started down the hall and Enishi – against his better judgement – went with him.


End file.
